ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Thursday appealed to international donor agencies and bilateral creditors to offer generous assistance to alleviate poverty.

“I assure you that whatever financial assistance you will provide, will be spent in a most transparent manner so that the issue of poverty can be addressed effectively,” he stated.

Inaugurating a three-day Pakistan Human Development Forum, the president announced the establishment of a Trust to remove poverty and improve health and educational services at all levels.

He said the government would initially provide Rs2 billion for the Trust which would have renowned people like Abdul Sattar Edhi and former caretaker prime minister Moeen Qureshi.

The president told the participants that the human development forum was taking place in the wake of events following the Sept 11 attacks. Pakistan, he said, was doubly affected by the Sept 11 events as its foreign investment and imports had declined and the process of privatization slowed down.

He said his government was grappling with the serious issue of poverty when its economy was hard hit by terrorist attacks in the United States.

Gen Musharraf said he would not only appeal to foreign friends and agencies but would also ask Pakistanis living both in and outside the country to come forward and donate generously to reduce poverty.

He said his government had worked out a strategy to improve governance, introduce more economic reforms and restructure the state sector. Human development, he said, was an important element of the government strategy to be implemented with the help of donors, bilateral creditors and philanthropists.

Pakistan, he pointed out, needed foreign funds to come out of its debt dilemma and promote foreign investment. “We need to increase our foreign exchange reserves despite the fact that today we have an all time high $5 billion reserves.”

The president said his government was trying to tackle poverty by improving agriculture resources through the construction of dams and canals and by promoting small and medium enterprises.

“We need to concentrate on small dams and canals for job creations,” he said, adding the exercise would help cultivate 2 million additional acres. In this regard, he said, he would be announcing in a few weeks the initiation of new development projects in all the four provinces.

The president said that through Information Technology and telecommunication network, new jobs were being created. “Only in NADRA we have provided jobs to 10,000 people who are earning Rs8,000 to 10,000 per month”.

He said Zakat and Khushhal Pakistan Programme were contributing to lower the incidence of poverty. But, he said, a lot more needed to be done to achieve the desired results.

Energy sector, Gen Musharraf said, was also receiving importance to improve the economy and thus it was helping removing poverty. He said there was a need to undertake hydel power projects rather than thermal power projects on which the government had to spend $1 billion annually and as such it was a very expensive preposition.

He said the Paris Club had done favour by having debt re-profiling of $12.5 billion for 38 years and added that IMF was also forthcoming and had approved Poverty Reduction Growth Facility programme.

The president said that fiscal deficit had dropped and inflation contained and at the same time defence budget was reduced. “Indian defence budget was first increased by 28 per cent and then by 14pc last year, while we went for reduction. And I am being told by my finance minister to eat bullets in order to overcome serious economic problems,” the president said.

He said the interest rate had been reduced to help undertake new private investment in the country. He told the participants that 100 new technical and vocational schools would be opened shortly.

The president said that a task force on human development had been set up to coordinate efforts with federal and provincial agencies to deliver the goods aimed at removing poverty and improving health and educational facilities.