WASHINGTON, April 21: Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz has arrived in Washington to attend the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund. During his stay in the US capital, Mr Aziz will also meet senior officials of the Bush administration including Treasury Secretary John Snow, Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Administrator US Agency For International Development Andrew S. Natsios and chairman Export Import Bank, Philip Merrill.

He will also meet IMF and World Bank officials, including the bank's president and vice president, and other senior officials from the state, treasury and commerce departments. He will hold a separate meeting with Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a personal friend and a strong supporter of the finance minister in Washington.

Besides meeting senior senators and congressmen, Mr Aziz is also scheduled to address the Brookings Institution and the Pakistani community during his stay in Washington. In New York, Mr Aziz will be leading the Pakistani delegation in the high level meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council with the Bretten Woods institution and the World Trade Organization at the United Nations headquarters on April 26.

The minister will also chair one of the 12 round tables at the meeting. The high level ECOSOC meeting takes place as part of continued multilateral efforts to further the attainment of development goals. The focus of the meeting, this year, is on seeking ways to increase policy coherence and coordination for the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus on financing for development.

The meeting will be attended by the chairpersons of the Development Committee of the World Bank, the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the IMF, the General Council of the World Trade Organization, the Trade and Development Board of UNCTAD, several Ministers, high representatives of the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, WTO, UN agencies as well as representatives of private sector, NGOs, and civil society.

The financing for development process, led by the United Nations, seeks to mobilize financial resources for the development needs of the developing countries and open up new spaces for inter-governmental and inter-institutional dialogue on financial, trade and development issues.

The International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2002, demonstrated a new partnership based on a holistic approach to mobilize resources needed for implementing commitments made by the international community in support of development.

APP adds: Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz during a brief stopover at New York on Tuesday briefed a group of US investors about country's economy and sustainable growth achieved in various socio-economic sectors.