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Thursday March 28, 2024

Economic policy dialogue with Japan next month

By Mehtab Haider
March 23, 2018

ISLAMABAD: Amid increasing reliance on booming $60 billion Pakistan-China Economic Corridor (CPEC), Islamabad and Tokyo are all set to hold high-level economic policy dialogue next month in order to find out ways and means for boosting relations including exploring possibility for establishing center of training for auto mechanics.

“This high-powered economic policy dialogue between Pakistan and Japan is scheduled to be held in Islamabad on April 26, 2018 just one day ahead of presenting the next budget for 2018-19 which will be tabled in Parliament on April 27,” official sources confirmed to The News here on Thursday.

With increasing reliance on CPEC, Japan in the recent past had signed economic cooperation with India. Now efforts are underway to hold high-level policy dialogue with our counterparts from Japan in order to apprise them that Pakistan is open for enhancing its economic cooperation with all economic giants including Japan so certain areas and projects would be identified in the scheduled talks next month for promoting mutual ties.

“The Economic Affairs Division (EAD) has sought project details from the ministries/division and attached departments concerned as well as from provinces which will be tabled in the upcoming policy dialogue going to be held next month,” said the official.

Among many projects, it is the wish of Islamabad that Japan should establish state of art Centre in Pakistan for imparting training to auto mechanics because the local mechanics of auto sector lack capability and skills in terms of any international standards.

“We have so far received many proposals from our stakeholders and now the government will take final decision for presenting a few of them before the Japanese counterparts in the upcoming economic policy dialogue,” said the official sources.

Japan, which was once the largest bilateral donor of Pakistan, was among list of a few donor countries with help of which the country had constructed state of the art development projects such as Kohat Tunnel, Al Shifa Eye Clinic, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and many others. Tokyo used to provide Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the range of $500 million to $1 billion on annual basis during the decade of 90s but after nuclear explosion this ODA assistance got suspended.