LAHORE, Oct 5: State Bank of Pakistan Governor Dr Ishrat Husain said on Saturday that a policy of reducing country’s indebtedness was being pursued to make the national economy stronger and more resilient.

He was speaking at the concluding session of the seminar on commercial financing of infrastructure projects, at a local hotel.

He said that the federal and provincial governments needed to avoid more borrowing in line with this policy.

He said that all the stake holders of a particular sector should be involved in deliberations and all the possible risks be assessed before actual launch of a project.

He cautioned of not assuming an optimistic scenario about projects before their launch. The consumers were still paying the price for the adoption of such approach in case of Independent Power Producer (IPP) projects in the past. Wapda had to pay capacity charges to the IPPs, he said.

The SBP governor said that the Punjab Road Infrastructure Company could raise the funds required for the projects by launching term financing certificates (TFCs). He said that the Punjab government should exploit all the ways, including the expanding of stock market for raising capital for the road projects.—APP