Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Minister for Economic Affairs, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar on Wednesday witnessed the signing ceremony of loan agreement of worth $304 million with the World Bank (WB) in Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Minister observed the signing ceremony of loan agreement of “Punjab Resource Improvement and Digital Effectiveness Program (PRIDE)” worth US$ 304 million, said a press release issued here.
Federal secretary for Ministry of Economic Affairs, Noor Ahmed, signed the loan agreement on behalf of the government of Pakistan while the representative of government of Punjab signed the operational agreement.
Country Director, World Bank Najy Benhassine signed the program agreements on behalf of the World Bank.
The program aims to help Punjab government to increase its own source revenue and to improve reliability of resource allocation and access to digital services for people and firms in the province.
The program interventions would primarily address three challenging areas of fiscal risk management, revenue mobilization and expenditure management through better use of information systems.
Improved Public Resources Management (IMRM) is expected to create additional fiscal space of Rs274 billion by the end of financial year 2025 thereby creating enough space for government of Punjab to scale-up its spending on public service and infrastructure to foster rapid growth in the Province.
On the occasion, Minister for Economic Affairs reiterated commitment of his government to improve fiscal management by augmentation of domestic revenues and to enhance spending on pro-people development initiatives.
