Australia to help Pakistan in energy, agriculture sector

ISLAMABAD, Jun 30 (APP): Australian High Commissioner to Pakistan Timothy George on Wednesday said that his country was keen to further expand business and commercial ties with Pakistan.During his visit to Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL), he said that his government would provide possible help in economic, energy, agriculture related challenges faced by the people of Pakistan.

"Most significantly we would focus on development of agriculture sector besides other areas of cooperation as it has very good working relationship with Pakistan and its people for years", he added.

We want to further develop bilateral trade relation, specifically looked towards promotion of technology and extend necessary cooperation in agriculture sector, he added.

Earlier ZTBL President Zaka Ashraf gave a presentation on banks' operational performance and its proactive role in the development of agriculture sector.

The bank chief said that ZTBL has increased the disbursement from Rs.56 billion to RS.78 billion registering an increase of Rs.22 billion.

He informed that ZTBL was planning to expand its outreach which was direly needed for the overall development of the agriculture sector.

He further said ZTBL was the major financial institution in the agriculture sector and have been exploring new avenues of investment in the agriculture sector so as to introduce technology, increase production and farmers' income and hence helped to alleviate rural poverty .

The bank has made strategic five year plan, he said adding that under the plan bank would encourage lending for water conservation projects, development of model villages, lending for edible oil crops to reduce the import bill of Rs. 111 billion.

He further said that the bank has set a credit target of Rs.80 billion for this year and ZTBL wanted to provide credit with technology.

For this we have to share the experience and knowledge of other countries and therefore invited number of delegations from World Bank, ADB, China , Australia and USA .

The Australian High Commissioner expressed that Pakistan and Australia will work together to meet the food security challenges as Pakistan has lot of resources and potential in this area.