Pakistan invites Iran to invest in housing sector

[Naveed Yaseen]

NEW DELHI: Pakistan has invited Iran to invest in its expanding housing sector. Talking to APP on Monday, Housing Minister Rehmatullah Kakar, said Iranian Housing Minister, Saeedi Kia had accepted invitation to visit Pakistan and explore the potential of Iranian investment.

Kakar met Saeedi on sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development being held here. The minister said his ministry has already signed MOUs with the several investors from different countries including USA, Canada, China Malaysia and Germany to build one million housing units in Pakistan.

Earlier, speaking at Pacific-Asia Ministerial Conference on Housing, he said Pakistan had chalked out an ambitious housing plan based on public-private partnership to promote housing sector. He said over one lakh housing units will be completed alone in Islamabad by the end of 2011 to overcome housing shortage in the national capital.

Kakar informed the participant of the conference that Pakistan is already working to resolve issues relating to slums, water and sanitation, housing finance, affordability and sustainable urbanisation.

He said Pakistan is ready to accept regional challenges and it is the first country which has already nominated representatives to the steering Committee of the Asia-Pacific Conference.

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