KARACHI, May 22: Governor State Bank of Pakistan Dr Ishrat Husain on Saturday said that country needed $3 billion every year for infrastructure development.

He was speaking at the inauguration of satellite office of International Finance Corporation (IFC) in the metropolis.

He said the government can finance half of this amount from Public Sector Development Project (PSDP) fund, while private sector can supplement $1.5 billion as its share.

Dr Ishrat said that International Finance Corporation can help private sector or Karachi City Government in floating municipal bonds or local currency bonds for financing infrastructure development.

He hoped that the city will benefit from this type of financing for funding its development projects.

He invited International Finance Corporation to provide innovative financing from its cross country experiences in the field of contingent liabilities and risk guarantees.

He was of the view that Pakistan was facing infrastructure shortage in all sector including power, gas, electricity, ports pipelines, etc.

He said that government was also focusing on SMEs development and housing and construction as these sectors were highly labour incentive and playing very important role in employment generation.-APP