News: Pakistan inked agreements with US to ensure long-term economic growth
Name of the Newspaper: Associated Press of Pakistan
Date of publication: Tuesday, August 01, 2006

ISLAMABAD, Aug 1 (APP): Pakistan and United States on Tuesday inked two agreements to promote knowledge-based economic development and ensure long term economic growth.

The first agreement is part of the US government’s five year economic growth assistance package to Pakistan worth more than $ 73 million while the second one is to allow the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) to partner with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in support of initiatives that promote knowledge-based economic development. This bilateral agreement commits $ 13.7 million for 2006 on the part of USAID.

Addressing the signing ceremony held here at HEC Headquarters, US Ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan C Crocker said the funding will enable USAID to provide over 130,000 loans for micro and small businesses in the four provinces as well as FATA, and enable assistance to more than 50,000 farmers in drought- affected areas of Balochistan with new seeds, livestock and irrigation systems.

He said the collaboration between HEC and CSF will bring research in higher education and apply it to industrial and commercial development.

In his address, Chairman HEC and Adviser to the Prime Minister for Science and Technology, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman expressed his pleasure at the realization, though a few decades belated, importance of innovation and entrepreneurship.

He shared his excitement at the opportunity of unleashing of the creative talents of the country’s 80 million youth through the wide ranging programmes offered by HEC for higher education.

Dr. Atta mentioned the foreign scholarships through which 400-500 students were being sent abroad for studies while the indigenous scholarships programme was providing the opportunity to students to pursue their doctoral level trainings within Pakistan.

He said to further enhance the strength of faculty in universities, the Foreign Faculty Programme was operating successfully in attracting faculty members working abroad to return to Pakistan and enrich the academic environment.

The Chairman HEC said further plans were afoot to develop major initiatives with US in the field of science and technology, apart from the largest Fulbright Programme which was in operation in Pakistan.

He expressed his determination to expand the programme with CSF as the establishment of six engineering and three technological universities would complement the industry-academic linkage through it technological incubators and parks.

One of CSF’s main objectives is to develop and support linkages between academia and industry for knowledge-based enterprise development.

The CSF will provide matching grants to the academic community for projects that commercialize their research. It will also help them partner with the business community to start and develop new enterprises and encourage the private sector and local governments to contribute financing to relevant research.

Explaining the steps of technical assistance in the working of CSF, Minister of State for Finance and Chairman CSF, Omar Ayub Khan said the CSF would provide matching grants, venture capitals and business incubators and screen the project for eligibility.

He said the collaboration would unlock productivity and technical advancement in universities and result in increased productivity of economy.

The Minister said as more technology was commercialized, there would be more impetus to protect intellectual property rights from infringement.

Speaking on the occasion, Executive Director HEC, Dr. Sohail Naqvi outlined the manner by which HEC was engaged in investing in building human capital.

He termed research and development the key to development of any country according to its needs and challenges.

He stressed on university-industry partnerships and promoting entrepreneurship to make an impact on the economy.

Leveraging ICT was another area of importance where human resource needed to be enhanced and it remained one of HEC’s major strengths, he said and added HEC had computerized universities all over Pakistan, the digital library programme provided 20,000 journals and 4000 e-books online.

He also launched the new HEC website and national research repository, a consolidated collection archiving of intellectual output of PhD theses written in Pakistan universities.

At present, it has over 150 PhD theses available online in high quality digitized format while 250 are in the process of being uploaded. An additional 400 are in the process of digitization.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Competitiveness Support Fund, Dr. Arthur Bayhan presented a report on Regional Conference on Competitiveness and Economic Growth.