Japan, Pakistan sign $43 million energy sector programme loan

ISLAMABAD: The Japanese government is going to increase its ‘soft term’ yen loan to Pakistan, after Tokyo has seen a visible improvement in Pakistan’s security situation, as over the past several years its assistance remained almost negligible.

“In the past several years, the Japanese assistance to Pakistan was very much minimal due to security situations and other challenges, but now it is again picking up. We are going to shift to project financing,” Takashi Harada head of the Economic & Development Section of the Japanese Embassy stated this while briefing a group of selected journalists here.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government on Tuesday signed five billion yen loan (or $43 million) with Pakistan for the Energy Sector Programme-II. This is the second tranche of the same programme, as earlier last year Tokyo provided same 5 billion yens for the energy sector programme–I in 2014.

For both segments of the same programme, the collective amount has now reached to 10 billion yens. In this regard, Ambassador of Japan to Pakistan Hiroshi Inomata and Secretary for Economic Affairs Division Tariq Bajwa signed the agreement on the behalf of their respective governments. This loan is part of the Energy Sector Reforms Programme in Pakistan which is co-financed by Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB).