ISLAMABAD, June 22: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said has said that $6-7 billion will be spent on infrastructure development in Pakistan during the next five years.

Chairing a meeting to review the steps required to improve the logistics chain in the country, the premier said this year the federal government would spend Rs60 billion on infrastructure development and transportation.

The amount spent by the provincial governments in these sectors will be in addition to this, he added.

He said under the National Trade Corridor (NTC) Plan, the government is focusing on improving the end to end logistics chain to improve productivity and competitiveness of industrial sector.

Under NTC, he said improvements are being made in the system of railways, roads and highways.

Processes at the ports, airports and land borders have been simplified to reduce the clearance time. The completion of NTC plan and building of North-South Corridor would remove the road blocks to our industrial development and trade enhancement, he added.

“We want to jump the curve and do the right things rightly to improve our productivity and competitiveness,” he said.

The meeting decided that the Planning Commission and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) would jointly prepare a strategic framework to improve the business enabling infrastructure in Pakistan.

The Planning Commission will coordinate with all related departments to prepare the framework. The study that will be carried by a world class consulting firm will focus on determining the future growth requirements in Pakistan.

It will be completed within a year and will have five stages; assessing the current situation, setting growth priorities, critical enablers and alignments to NTC, syndication and stakeholders’ management, implementation, planning and institutionalisation.

Mr Aziz said the initiative is well timed and the first essential step to operationalise the vision 2030 approved by the National Economic Council (NEC) in its meeting held on May 31, 2007.

ADB Country Director, Peter L. Fedon said the strategic framework, to be jointly prepared by the ADB and Pakistan government, will focus on improving the competitive advantage of Pakistan. It will identify steps to bring improvements in terms of competitiveness and optimal utilisation of resources.