ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Ahad Cheema lauded the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as an agile and longstanding development partner, acknowledging its more than six decades of support for Pakistan’s key development priorities.
Cheema was talking to ADB’s Vice President for South, Central and West Asia, Yingming Yang, who called on him here.
The meeting was attended by the Secretary Economic Affairs Division, Executive Director ADB and senior officials from both sides.
The Minister also acknowledged the Bank’s approval of the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) 2026–2030.
He highlighted the Government’s comprehensive fiscal, structural and governance reforms, undertaken in last 3-4 years in close coordination with key development partners, including the IMF, ADB and World Bank, which has been helped restore confidence and create stronger foundation for sustainable economic growth besides contributing to macroeconomic stability, growth and credit rating upgrades.
Cheema further highlighted ML-1 as a national flagship project and also informed that privatization was government’s priority and effective frameworks for public-private partnerships, improving implementation and developing a strong pipeline of commercially viable projects were in process.
He urged ADB to scale up Private Sector Operations in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the ADB Vice-President welcomed the improvements in Pakistan’s sovereign credit ratings by international rating agencies and appreciated the Government’s efforts towards strengthening macroeconomic stability.
He appreciated government’s initiative to introduce project readiness reforms. He also acknowledged that Pakistan provided an opportunity to ADB to introduce innovative financing instruments in Pakistan such as policy-based guarantee and guarantee to for issuance of panda bonds. The strong momentum generated by the Government of Pakistan on ML-1 was appreciated.
He reaffirmed ADB’s commitment to working closely with the government with a view to facilitating progress towards early groundbreaking of the project.
He also proposed to establish a working group to work on Railways Institutional Reforms and assured that the process would be initiated promptly to provide an effective platform.
The VP also assured to further expand ADB’s private sector portfolio in Pakistan. Other important aspects discussed included strengthening SME sector and export led growth, targeted skill development programs, strengthening transmission and distribution infrastructure, supporting water and food security, and enhancing Technical Assistance Programs in Pakistan.
Both sides agreed to maintain close coordination and translate the strong Pakistan-ADB partnership into accelerated implementation of development projects, enhanced private sector participation and tangible economic outcomes.
