ISLAMABAD: Pakistan would seek multimillion dollar investment from Japan indozens of projects mainly in infrastructure development, as the countryprepares for a major economic policy dialogue with prosper East Asiannation before its annual budget due next month, officials said.
Several federal ministries and almost all the provincial governments havesent project proposals seeking Japanese help manpower training in hightechnology areas and a number of infrastructure-related projects.
A high-level economic policy dialogue between Pakistan and Japan isscheduled to be held in Islamabad ahead of upcoming federal budget for thefiscal year 2018/19 and a Japanese delegation of senior officials led by aminister is expected to participate.
A spokesman of the Japanese embassy said the planned policy dialogue wouldprovide opportunity to exchange views and information between the twocountries particularly in the field of trade and investment, and economiccooperation to enhance the bilateral relationship.
Bilateral trade volume of around two billion dollars between Pakistan andJapan is considered by both the country very low compared with the growthpotential.
Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO), in the survey, sees Pakistan asthe top Asian country for Japanese companies for expected profits in 2018and chalk out plans for expansion of operations and hiring of the locallabour force.
Those results indicate high confidence of Japanese companies’ in futureeconomic prospects of Pakistan and quality of labour force.
Meanwhile, Japan on Tuesday inked an agreement to grant assistance of 500million Japanese Yen ($4.7 million), under the Economic and SocialDevelopment Programme) and 2.392 billion Japanese yen ($22.5 million) forthe Improvement of Airport Security (Phase 2).
Takashi Harada, Charge d’Affaires ad interim of Japan to Pakistan and SyedGhazanfar Abbas Jilani, Secretary of Economic Affairs Division, signed theagreement.
The grant for the Economic and Social Development Programme will beutilized to procure equipment for meteorological observation.
It will enable the Pakistan Meteorological Department to improve theaccuracy of weather forecasts and to disseminate the early warnings forclimate disaster.
The second project, the Project for Improvement of Airport Security (Phase2) ” is a follow-up of the grant aid signed in 2013.
Through the second phase project Japan will provide the Pakistan CivilAviation Authority (CAA) with security equipment for screening of check-inbaggage, hand
baggage and vehicles at Karachi, Faisalabad, Multan and the New IslamabadInternational Airports, while the phase one project provided securityequipment for Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad airports.
This equipment embrace the latest technology matching the internationalsecurity standards set by the United States and the European Union.
Chief Representative of JICA Pakistan Office Yasuhiro Tojo said thisproject would support the Pakistan to achieve the key objective of theNational Aviation Policy 2015 which is to improve the governance andoversight for the compliance of ICAO standards of aviation safety, securityand efficiency in the country.