Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance and Economic Affairs, Dr Salman Shah on Saturday praised the USAID for initiating "good programmes" for uplift in Pakistan. He made a mention of "missing links" and more expanded cooperation where prospects exist. Dr Shah observed this while participating in a lively roundtable discussion held by the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University.
Besides the Governor State Bank, Dr Ishrat Husain, other participants of the discussion were Secretary Finance Naveed Ahsan, Secretary Economic Affairs Shuja Shah and advisor to the Ministry, Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan.
The largely attended event included former diplomats, academia, students and scholars.
Dr Walter Andersen, Director, South Asia Studies, conducted the proceedings.
Dr Salman Shah said the USAID had reached areas where our successive governments did not concentrate. For instance, these areas were roads, schools and water supply.
In the West of Indus, he said, there were many areas, which required increased attention for uplift endeavour.
He mentioned the interest shown by GE (General Electronics) in Pakistan and said, "why could not we have bilateral strategic plan for progress. Let's have a plan in the missing link areas, which required people-to-people effort."
The government of Pakistan has a fairly large programme, in this behalf, but any supportive efforts would always be an immense help, he added.
Intervening, Dr Ishrat said Pakistan was a large producer of dairy, but farmers were not getting due returns, while needs of urban area people for more milk and dairy products were inadequately met.
He proposed joint ventures in dairy farming, may be in pasteurised milk, for better marketing and availability of products for urban consumers and a fair return to farmers.
This is an area, he said, in which the United States could help materialise this potential, which is otherwise going to waste.
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