ISLAMABAD, July 16: Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday called for exploiting Saarc trade potential to reduce poverty, increase economic growth and employment.

The call came during a meeting with the visiting Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka Tyronne Fernando.

The Sri Lankan minister appreciated the economic reforms introduced by the government, and said that these reforms have stabilized Pakistan’s economy and won her confidence of the international community as well as international donors.

Both the leaders also discussed the possibilities of making South Asia a strong base of economic development.

The two sides also reviewed economic performance of their respective countries. The Sri Lankan foreign minister said that election of new Sri Lankan government reflected people’s aspirations to promote peace in the country. As a result after negative economic growth last year Sri Lanka hopes to achieve positive growth this year. The main thrust of Sri Lankan government was to improve governance, reduce poverty and introduce structural and financial reforms to make the country’s economy buoyant.

Aziz said that it was encouraging to note that Sri Lanka has achieved high literacy rate, which has produced excellent human capital in the country. It was also encouraging to note that Sir Lankan was aiming to achieve even better results in poverty reduction by generating economic activity especially by promoting tourism in the country.

Giving brief resume of reform agenda, he said, Pakistan has introduced financial, structural and administrative reforms and have introduced good governance in the country. The government was committed to the process of devolution to enable people to take decisions at grass-root level, which in turn, will improve public participation in decision making and make public representatives accountable to the people.

He said that fiscal deficit has been reduced, reserves has increased to nearly 7 billion dollars and debt servicing cost has been contained.