INP-WealthPk

Pakistan, Germany to Ink 10 Agreements for Technical, Financial Cooperation

February 24, 2022

By Karim Madad ISLAMABAD, Feb. 24 (INP-WealthPK) Pakistan and Germany are scheduled to sign 10 agreements of around €123.275 million in the fields of technical and financial cooperation. Saeed Chaudhry, Director Media Economic Affairs Division (EAD), told WealthPk that the 10 agreements include support to disabled persons, RIF-ii for resilient resource management in cities, Covid tax loan guarantee, National Transmission and Dispatch Company (accompanying measures), start-up Pakistan, digital governance, billion tree afforestation support programme-ii, promoting renewable energy, establishment of renewable energy hubs (TVET) and social health protection-iii. An agreement signed between the two countries in 1972 on technical cooperation forms the basis for bilateral cooperation. For the past five years, Saeed said, the focus had been on various initiatives including good governance, renewable energy and energy efficiency, basic education and vocational training, health and sustainable economic development in Pakistan. The development cooperation by BMZ is dealt with through two vehicles: the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and Credit for Reconstruction Bank (KfW). GIZ, Saeed said, proposes projects and accordingly spends budgeted public funds as development assistance corresponding to the technical assistance agreements, while KfW, which works as a credit bank inter alia, lends for development-related projects within Germany as well as in developing countries through the financial cooperation agreements. There are two types of agreements signed with Germany. The first agreement is a technical cooperation agreement (GIZ) under which the German government makes available at its own expense contributions in form of personnel, inputs, and, where appropriate, financial contributions. The second type of agreement is the Financial Cooperation Agreement (KfW) in which the government makes available at its own expanse contributions in the form of personnel, input and where appropriate, financial contributions. Saeed further said G2G negotiations were held on November 2, 2021 in Islamabad. The meeting was informed that a commitment had been made to resolve the pending issues with the provincial revenue authorities till June 2022 and phase out German development activities in those provinces. Since the last negotiations on development cooperation in 2019, the German government has committed an additional €32.25 million for bilateral technical and financial cooperation. Regarding the current portfolio technical cooperation, Saeed said a total of €147.5 million worth of 11 projects had been committed with disbursement of €60 million.