Country Director Asian Development Bank for Pakistan Ms. Xiaohong Yang called On Minister of State for IT and Telecom Mrs Anusha Rehman here at Islamabad today (Tuesday).Matters pertaining to establishment of IT Park in Karachi were discussed. Federal Secretary IT Mr Aamir Ashraf Khawaja, Member IT Syed Raza Shah were also present in the meeting. Ms. Xiaohong Yang appreciated the progress that the country has made in the arena of IT and Telecom during last four years. Ms. Yang apprised the Minister that ADB is ready to grant a loan to Pakistan for building of state of the art IT park in Karachi and a sum of two hundred million has already been allocated for technical appraisal of this project by ADB. She informed the Minister that ADB team of consultants will come to Pakistan to conduct extensive technical and feasibility studies, if government communicates its consent and selects ADB for this project. The team of consultants will submit their final report after detailed studies within next three to four months and on the basis of that report ADB will formally submit its proposal to the Ministry of IT. Anusha Rehman appreciated the offer of ADB and agreed to revert after it is analyzed by the Ministry in detail. Anusha Rehman 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 are two main components of our policy initiatives that we rigorously pursue in our 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. Ms. Yang agreed and said that ADB was very keen to work on IT Parks project with IT Ministry and in line with the vision of IT Minsitry, are willing to prepare a Strategic Framework for IT Parks so that many IT parks can be built in the country on those lines. *****
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