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Summary Foreign ministers of 188 countries attend IMF and World Bank meeting in Tokyo.
The Pakistan’s delegation is led by Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh.The Finance Minister met with the Managing Director of World Bank Sri Mulyani Indrawati. Both the dignitaries discussed Pakistan’s economic situation and fiscal health and identified steps to address the avenues that will be helpful for Pakistan’s financial discipline and strengthen with consequent support to trade and industry.The Minister explained economic situation of Pakistan in detail highlighting the achievements of the government like containing the expenditure and controlling the inflation. Despite various constraintsPakistan has succeeded in achieving 20 percent increase in tax collection.The Managing Director of World Bank has appreciated Pakistan efforts in bringing financial discipline and assured the Finance Minister of the World Bank’s full help and support in achieving economic development in Pakistan.The Finance Minister also attended the Common Wealth Finance Ministers’ meeting and made interventions highlighting Pakistan’s positive role in strengthening the mechanism under the Commonwealth fold.The countries participating in this meeting will share each other’s experiences and issues and come up with new prospects on economic and financial problems.On the sidelines of this conference, a two day dialogue on disaster prevention also began in Sendai on Tuesday where Secretary Economic Affairs Division and Deputy Chairman Planning Commission from Pakistan participated.Sendai was badly hit by Great East Japan Earthquake in March last year. In this dialogue reconstruction efforts by Japan are being shared with the other countries of the world.The other members of the delegation include Finance Secretary Wajid Rana, Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Yaseen Anwar, Secretary Economic Affairs Division Javed Iqbal and Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Nadeem-ul-Haque.
