ISLAMABAD, Oct 3: A delegation of the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), a joint initiative of the USAID and the ministry of finance, will participate in the annual Global Competitiveness Conference - 2007 in Portland, Oregon from October 8.

The five-day conference co-chaired by the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department and the Portland Development Commission, will include an academic summit, industry cluster tours, and comments by keynote speakers. Nearly five hundred participants from more than 35 countries are expected to attend the conference that will mark TCI’s 10-year anniversary.

Comprising senior cluster experts from public as well as private sector and leading academic institutions the Pakistani delegation will be led by Arthur Bayhan, chief executive officer of CSF, who is also vice-president for TCI’s Asia Pacific Region.

The Pakistani delegation will also visit the International Institute for Innovation Journalism (IIIJ) at Stanford University, where the delegation members will discuss opportunities and initiatives for improving the effectiveness of the programme for innovation and economic reporting in Pakistan .

The CSF leader will chair a conference session on competitiveness in the Islamic world that will include presentations from Mr. Bayhan and other cluster experts from around the world.

The conference theme of “Collaboration, Innovation, and Sustainability” will highlight Pakistan’s recent initiatives on improving its global competitiveness rankings.

The CSF became functional in May 2006 and in a short span of less than eighteen months, it has proved to be the most effective platform to create dialogue between the public and private sector leaders at the highest level. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, at the launch of the State of Pakistan’s Competitiveness Report in April this year termed competitiveness as the cornerstone of Pakistan’s growth strategy.