A government official informed myrepublica.com that the government had no other option than to postpone the meeting since the finance minister, who had sent out invitations to all donors, is no longer in office.
"The postponement was the obvious thing to do since the owner and presenter of the National Development Strategy Paper (NDSP), which the government was supposed to submit as its main development strategy paper at the upcoming NDF meeting, is no more in power," said the official.
The official further said that all the donor agencies which had received invitations to attend the meeting will be officially informed tomorrow about the postponement. Emails have been sent to all donors concerned and official letters will be dispatched tomorrow, he said.
In the NDSP, the government had set itself a target of investing Rs 1,324.5 billion to achieve an average economic growth rate of 7.6 percent and lower the national poverty level to 21.5 percent over the period of the next three years.
The development strategy paper had aimed to achieve an agricultural growth rate of 5.2 percent and non-agricultural growth of 8.8 percent during the period.
To achieve the growth targets, the strategy paper planned to invest Rs 1,151.6 billion from domestic resources for the formation of fixed assets. Of this, the private sector was expected to invest Rs 324 billion while the remaining Rs 827.7 billion was expected to come from government sources.
As per the initial estimate, the total resources gap was expected to be Rs 115.7 billion and the government was planning to urge donors during the NDF meeting to raise their commitments to fill the gap.
prem@myrepublica.com
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