Federal Finance Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar met the President OPIC Ms. Elizabeth Littlefield

Federal Finance Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar met President OPIC Ms Elizabeth Littlefield and her team and discussed OPIC’s program portfolio and the projects in pipeline in Pakistan. Finance Minister apprised Ms Littlefield the excellent economic recovery which was attracting investors to make new investment or expand operations in Pakistan. He said indicators like foreign exchange reserves, inflation, Discount Rate and Stock Market index had markedly improved in last 22 months and international agencies had acknowledged the economic recovery. He said IMF Board has recently cleared 6th review without any waiver and Moody’s has also upgraded Pakistan’s outlook from Stable. He observed that in view of the renewed interest of investors OPIC can increase its presence in Pakistan and finance more projects especially in the energy sector.

Ms Elizabeth Littlefield congratulated Finance Minister over the successful review of EFF program and improvement in rating by Moody’s. She stated that Pakistan had staged a remarkable recovery in a very short span of time and the investors’ interest had evidently increased. Ms Littlefield informed Finance Minister Dar to look into some of the pending issues of its wind energy projects of 50 MW each. She said that though the size of these projects was not big yet it was clean renewable energy and improve its energy mix.

Finance Minister informed Ms Littlefield that Government of Pakistan was working on generation of 7000 MW of electricity from hydal, coal, wind and LNG. He assured President OPIC of all possible help in removing glitches in its projects which are in pipeline. Finance Minister apprised her about the import of LNG which will be used to produce electricity and asked OPIC to provide financing to US companies interested in these projects.

Ms Littlefield appreciated the idea and invited the government of Pakistan to identify projects on which OPIC can help. She also flagged utilizing Pakistani-American Diaspora for investment in various projects in Pakistan. Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani, thanked Ms Littlefield on sending a representative who made a presentation before the Pakistani Community during the first Convention of Pakistani-American community held at the embassy in October 2014. He expressed hope that the Pakistani Diaspora will benefit from the positive investment climate and make investments in Pakistan.

April 18, 2015
Washington D.C