Japanese Ambassador Seiji Kojima said on Wednesday that his country had sought the proposals of both Federal and provincial governments for exploration of the economic potentials of NWFP.
Speaking in Guest Hour programme of Peshawar Press Club (PPC), he said that members of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) had briefed him on potential of textile, fruit, beverage, metallic, non-metallic, tourism and hydropower generation sectors.
He said the potential would materialise through encouraging domestic and Japanese investment. The Japanese Ambassador was accompanied by Embassy of Japan's First Secretary Masayuki Taga and Consular General of Japan in Peshawar Nawabzada Fazal Karim Afridi.
Seiji Kojima said Japan would provide assistance for the promotion of the potential sectors and also hinted at increase in the assistance of Japan in this regard.
He said that his country would extend assistance in vocational training and technical education adding that they would also provide assistance for development of infrastructure, tunnels, and roads, construction of bridges and initiation of agriculture related projects in NWFP. Furthermore, he said that Japan would also provide assistance in water supply schemes.
The ambassador of Japan said that he had crossed through Kohat Tunnel and appreciated the better management of the facility by Pakistani agencies, which were operating the tunnel-computerised system and were capable to meet any emergency.
He said that maintaining for physical construction, the government of Japan would provide safety technology for maintenance of the tunnel and would later extend it to other parts of the province for agricultural and industrial development of the province.
In response to a question, Seiji Kojima said that during their meeting with Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani and District Nazim Ghulam Ali, he came to know about difficulties in supply of clean drinking water to the people of Peshawar and constant fall in the water level.
He said the project of water supply from Warsak Dam was discussed in the meeting with District Nazim. He said that before extension of financial assistance, they would go for conducting a feasibility study of the project. The ambassador said that they would also assist provincial government in promotion of education.
He said that he got an impression of the lack of education facilities and particularly for girls, who used to travel a long distance for attending schools. "The government of Japan would like to work for the development of education sector in tribal area," he added.
Regarding Pak-Japan relations, he said that his country considered Pakistan very important partner and was an important donor for later, saying till few years back Pakistan was the largest recipient of Japanese assistance in the world. "We are assisting Pakistan in water supply and development of infrastructure facilities," the ambassador maintained.
He said that Japan was the first country, which provided assistance in relief to the victims of devastated earthquake of October last year. The government of Japan has completed of project of US 66 million dollars in the earthquake-affected area through establishing 130 schools and restoration of 20 medical facilities including some basic health units in district Batagram. The assistance in reconstruction and rehabilitation work in earthquake-affected areas would continue till March 2008.