Mr. Bernhard Stephen Schlagheck, Ambassador of Federal Republic of Germany made a courtesy call on Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar in his office today. Both exchanged views on economic outlook in post-Pandemic situation and on-going portfolio of Germany in Pakistan.
The Minister thanked and appreciated the Germany for extending debt relief of almost USD 99 million under G-20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) to Pakistan during the Pandemic. He appreciated the Germany’s continuing economic cooperation worth of £ 3 billion in field of energy, health, education, governance, sustainable development and micro-finance sectors of Pakistan.
The Minister shared the details of structural reform agenda undertaken by the current government on key elements including good governance, institution building, transparency and accountability for better public service delivery. He apprised of G2G negotiations worth of £ 109 million on various projects encompassing energy, Sustainable Economic Development and Governance during the session held at Germany last year. He proposed to hold session of this forum at Islamabad this year and area of priority might be extended focusing towards health, human resource development, climate change & Green Environmental Technology, housing, tourism and e-Governance in the future.
The Minister also discussed the German Strategy for 2021-26 that it would be beneficial for Pakistan that this would be finalized in consultation with GoP and, real-time information sharing and monitoring might be framed to connect Donor, GoP and Implementing Partners for effective and timely execution of the projects.
The Ambassador appreciated the economic policies of the current government and strategy of ‘smart lockdown’ to curtail the COVID 19 in the country. He agreed upon the proposed areas of the priority by the Honourable Minister to enhance the area of G2G engagement between Pakistan & Germany. He said that Germany would keenly to continue economic cooperation with Pakistan in future and portfolio would be strengthen in the post-Pandemic situation.
