ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will give Pakistan $250 million for ‘Regional Improvement of Border Services’, a project of Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC).
The amount will be spent to provide state-of-the-art Customs facilities on three boarders, including Torkham, Chaman and Wagah.
The signing ceremony was held at a local hotel after 15th CAREC ministerial conference. The agreement was signed by Secretary Economic Affairs Division Tariq Bajwa and ADB County Director for Pakistan Werner E Liepach. Finance Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar and ADB President Takehiko Nakao also witnessed the signing ceremony between the Government of Pakistan and Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Speaking on the occasion, the finance minister thanked the ADB for providing support to Pakistan in the border management sector. He assured Pakistan’s commitment to mobilise all possible resources for improving and developing regional connectivity and linkages particularly with Afghanistan and Central Asian Region.
Furthermore, he mentioned that the government was very much keen to enhance economic cooperation with Central Asia. The components of the project include Development of physical infrastructure at border crossing points; provision of equipments (scanner, weigh-bridges etc); IT hardware and soft ware support-transition to single window system; Streamlining cross border procedures and capacity development.
The objectives of the project are, to adopt single window system for integrated and coordinated management of borders; increase trade and transit cargo through border crossing points; efficient cross border processing of goods and people and modernize border crossing points.
