The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have doubled their financial assistance and would now provide US$164.4m to Pakistan.
Official sources told that the ADB which had earlier provided US$75 m three-year funding has now decided to increase its assistance to US$150m. Similarly, the USAID which offered US$7.2m previously would now be extending US$14.4m to Pakistan
in 2005.
The basic purpose of the new assistance was to reduce poverty especially by helping Khushhali Bank to provide increasing number of small loans.
Both the international donor agencies, sources said, believed that out of total of 900 million household micro finance market in the world, a huge number of people lived in Pakistan who needed to be extended small and medium sized loans to help them establish their own businesses.
