ISLAMABAD, May 8: Pakistan and Turkey have agreed to expand scope of their cooperation for increasing bilateral trade and utilize all means including providing customs facilities to each others specially for the benefit of private sector traders.

The agreement to this effect was reached at a meeting between Federal Minister for Finance Shaukat Aziz and the visiting Turkish under secretary of finance who called on him here on Wednesday.

The Turkish delegation is visiting Pakistan to sign bilateral agreement on cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matters.

The federal finance minister briefed the Turkish delegation about improvements achieved in macroeconomic indicators of Pakistan.

He claimed that Pakistan’s current account had first time attained surplus status in 22 years by $1.6 billion.

The minister further said that the inflation had been arrested at 3 per cent with food inflation at 1 per cent and weighted average interest rate below 14 per cent. The GDP growth rate was expected to reach 3.5 percent this year as rupee had been strengthened.

Leader of the Turkish delegation also gave information about his country’s economic condition.

He said his country was coming out of recession and the growth rate, which was minus 9 per cent last year is expected to grow by 3 per cent this year - likewise inflation had been brought down to 30 per cent from 60 per cent of the last year. The interest rates were down to 55 per cent this year and privatization of Turkish key government assets had shown good results.

Shaukat Aziz also briefed the visiting delegation about Pakistan’s economic revival programme and the improvement in its economic indicators. He said that the plan was meant to provide conducive economic environment to private sector for much needed growth by improving investor’s confidence and enhance growth and reduce poverty.

The Turkish delegation leader was impressed by the reforms undertaken by Pakistan government and hoped for more economic cooperation between the two countries.