ISLAMABAD: The government of Japan has extended grant assistance worth Japanese Yen 318 million (around three million US dollars) to the Government of Pakistan for 'The Project for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS)' for FY 2020.

The exchange of notes and record of discussions for the grant were signed by Noor Ahmed, secretary, Economic Affairs Division (EAD) and Matsuda Kuninori, Ambassador of Japan.

A grant agreement on the details of implementation of the project for FY 2020 was also signed by Shigeki Furuta, chief representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Rahman Shah, deputy secretary EAD.

The JDS is designed to support social and economic development of the country by providing government officials an opportunity to obtain masters or doctoral degree in Japan in order to strengthen the administrative capacity of officials.

The participants of the JDS programme who are involved in formulation and implementation of policies are expected to learn in partner universities in Japan and acquire knowledge of their specialties as well as the know-how of how Japan became a country as it is today.

As JDS in Pakistan was started from 2018 and has four batches in four consecutive years, Pakistan is experiencing the third batch of the programme this year.

For the third batch, the maximum number of the slots for JDS participants in Pakistan is eighteen (18) seats for masters degree and two (2) seats for doctoral degree.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020