The delegation comprised Vice President, Treasury, Syndications & Information Tech, Jingdong Hua, Vice President, Risk Management & Portfolio, IFC, Saadia Khairi, Country Director World Bank, Rachid Benmessaoud, Senior Country Representative, IFC, Nadeem A Siddiqui, Senior Investment Officer, IFC Amena Arif and Senior Country Officer, IFC, Shabana Khawar.
After detailed discussions, it was agreed in principle that the IFC will team up with the Government of Pakistan and implement a bond programme to facilitate the government's various initiatives in the areas of construction of dams, energy projects, low housing schemes and other infrastructure projects.
IFC has also agreed to assist the Ministry of Finance in issuing Global Rupee Bond and Euro Dollar bonds.
The delegation members included experts who have experience in introducing bond programme in various countries, including China, India and Nigeria.
The Finance Minister made the World Bank and IFC team agree to jointly work for various bonds and indicated all-out support for such issues on behalf of the government and advised the team to come up with their detailed proposals at the earliest.
He also informed the team that recently he had already tasked Karachi Stock exchange, State Bank of Pakistan and Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to jointly work for enlisting the Government T-Bills and Pakistan Investment Bonds at the stock exchanges in the country which will be the starting point to develop a platform for future floatation of infrastructure bonds for mega development projects to be executed in Pakistan.
The minister recalled his recent meetings with the IFC in Washington and said that he was encouraged that IFC had decided to raise its country line for Pakistan from $1 billion to $3 billion.
Finance Minister said that Pakistan wishes to simultaneously start work on Diamer Basha Dam as well as Dasu Power Project.
The government, he said also plans to construct 500,000 low cost housing units in the country during the current tenure of PML-N government.
The Finance Minister said while the government is grappling with the present economic challenges it looks forward to expand infrastructure and construct projects of national importance for which efforts for mobilisation of resources have been started.
Pakistan, he said would appreciate financial, technical and professional help of IFC to attain these objectives.
Jingdong Hua dilating on the role of capital markets in the growth of the economy said that IFC was ready to partner with Pakistan for floatation of bonds in furthering the financing of the development programs planned by the Ministry of Finance.
Saadia Khairi inquired from the Finance Minister about the present status of privatisation and showed keen interest in mobilising global investors for strategic partnerships in State Owned Enterprises. Jingdong also offered help for capacity building and training facilities by IFC to Pakistan.
Chairman SECP, Senior officials of the Ministry of Finance and State Bank of Pakistan were also present on the occasion.