President seeks UAE investments

ISLAMABAD - President Asif Ali Zardari Wednesday invited Abu Dhabi Fund for Development to avail opportunities of investing in the energy sector and infrastructure development.
The President stated this while meeting a delegation of the Fund led by its Acting Director General Muhammad Saif Al-Suwaidi which called on him at the Presidency on Wednesday.
Bilateral relations between the two countries and the level of cooperation between the Pakistani government and the Fund in financing development projects in Pakistan were discussed. Those who attended the meeting included Balochistan Governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, Secretary General to the President M Salman Faruqui and Major General Faris Al-Mazrooi.
The President said that Pakistan valued its relationship with UAE and urged for further strengthening the bilateral ties between the two countries in all fields. He invited the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development to avail the investment opportunities in Pakistan and invest in sectors like oil and gas, power generation and infrastructure development projects, as the government had announced incentive packages to encourage investment in those sectors. He also appreciated the support and assistance of the UAE government in the relief and rehabilitation of the displaced people.
Meanwhile, President Asif Ali Zardari said agricultural transformation along with adequate power generation were two critical areas for overcoming Pakistans economic problems and called for a massive restructuring of the Zarai Taraqiati Bank as part of an important element of agricultural transformation.
He said this during a presentation given to him in the Presidency today on the Zarai Bank.
The President said that agriculture in Pakistan was beset by problems of low yield, water scarcity, soil degradation and poor use of inputs like fertilizers, pesticides besides credit problems faced by small farmers. These are the issues that need to be addressed on a priority basis, he said.
The ZTBL restructuring and revamping team that called on the President included senior policy advisor Prof John Mellor, Dr. Amir Mohammed a former Chairman PARC and Zaka Ashraf President ZTBL.
The meeting was attended by federal agriculture Minister Nazar Muhammad Gondal, Secretary General Salman Faruqui and secretaries and senior officials of relevant ministries.
The President said that ZTBL needed to take bold and imaginative measures and gear itself for rapid transformation of agriculture sector by providing supervised credit and new technologies to enhance crop yield and production of livestock, fish, fruits and vegetables.
The presentation given by Dr. Pervaiz Amir highlighted the transformation process of ZTBL and the reforms needed to upgrade the bank to play a much bigger role.
The President said that he would advise the government to make ZTBL independent by granting it greater autonomy to address the challenges of revamping.
He said that the government should also consider setting up a National Agriculture Transformation Fund for massively injecting new technologies into this vital sector of national economy.