ISLAMABAD: Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Country Director for Pakistan Xiaohong Yang on Tuesday informed the Minister of State for Information Technology (IT) Anusha Rehman that the ADB was ready to grant a loan to Pakistan for building a modern IT park in Karachi.
She stated this during a meeting with the minister of state for IT here during which matters pertaining to the establishment of an IT Park in Karachi were discussed.
Xiaohong Yang appreciated the progress that the country had made in the arena of IT and Telecom during the last four years.
Yang apprised the minister that the ADB was ready to grant a loan to Pakistan for building a modern IT park in Karachi and a sum of Rs200 million had already been allocated for technical appraisal of that project by ADB.
She informed the minister that an ADB’s consultants team would come to Pakistan to conduct extensive technical and feasibility studies if government communicates its consent and selects ADB for that project. The team of consultants would submit their final report after detailed studies within next three to four months and on the basis of that report, ADB would formally submit its proposal to the Ministry of IT.
Anusha Rehman appreciated the ADB’s offer and agreed to revert after it was analysed by the ministry in detail. She suggested that ADB may assist Pakistan in doing projects to bridge digital and gender divide in ICT sector.
The minister said that transparency and due diligence were two main components of the policy initiatives that had been rigorously pursued in the projects. We wish to build many IT parks in the country and need a strategic framework that is usable for both public and private sectors, she added.
