OPED | Friday, April 17, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Give me more, demands a dissolute Pakistan
So Tokyo will write out a billion-dollar cheque to Islamabad, says Mari Yamaguchi
Japan’s Prime Minister announced on Thursday that Tokyo will provide up to $1 billion in aid to Pakistan to support the country’s economic reforms and fight against terrorism. Prime Minister Taro Aso said the pledge will be made on Friday, when Japan hosts a one-day international donors conference. Mr Aso made the announcement after meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Pakistan is hoping to get as much as $6 billion in pledges during the conference, but Japanese officials have said they expect the figure to be closer to $4 billion and have warned against inflated expectations.
Japan has stressed the conference will try to steer away from getting too involved in issues that are more closely associated with Afghanistan, but acknowledged there is a growing awareness the two often overlap and can be hard to deal with separately. The conference is scheduled to be divided into two main sessions, one focusing on coordinating political support for Pakistan’s economic reforms and the second to delve more deeply into specific pledges.
Japan, which is hoping its role as host will bolster its international clout, says the conference, supported by the World Bank, will be attended by about 25 backers, including the United States, China and Saudi Arabia. A tally of pledges is expected to be announced at the end of the meeting.
Japan provided Pakistan with 48 billion yen ($480 million) in development assistance in 2008.
The meeting, the first of its kind for Pakistan, is separate from Washington’s plans to give Pakistan $1.5 billion in aid for the next five years, and a $7.6 billion bailout granted by the International Monetary Fund in November to avert the country’s most recent balance-of-payments crisis.
The troubles of Pakistan’s one-year-old, pro-Western Government are deep.
As part of the IMF deal, Pakistan has been asked to reduce its fiscal deficit and to tighten its monetary policy. But the central bank forecast this month that economic growth for the year through June will slump to between 2.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent, far below the 5.5 per cent the Government has projected — and too slow to create enough jobs for its fast-growing population of about 170 million people.
The Government has had to slash its development budget and is resisting calls to tax the narrow landowning elite that dominates its politics.
Industry is also hampered by severe power shortages that are not expected to ease until next year. Economic improvement in Pakistan is seen as a key not only to preventing the expansion of poverty, but also to slowing the growth of terrorism, which depends on the poor to fill its ranks.
-- AP
Email | Print | Rate:
|