Pakistan, UAE sign $200M assistance deal

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the UAE have signed a $200 million agreement to execute the third phase of the UAE Pakistan Assistance Program (UAE-PAP).
The program aims to provide humanitarian and development aid to Pakistan. The third phase “complements the previous phases, under which 165 development and humanitarian projects at a cost of $365 million have been established,” said Hamad Obaid Ibrahim Salem Al-Zaabi, Emirati ambassador to Pakistan.
“The relentless humanitarian and developmental efforts made by the UAE’s wise leadership are the basic pillars of the country’s foreign policy,” he added, citing the schools, colleges, hospitals, clinics, water supply projects, roads and bridges set up by his country in various regions of Pakistan.
“Such projects translate the importance that the UAE leadership attaches to education and health while building communities, with the ultimate goal of grooming generations capable of spearheading their nations in the future,” Al-Zaabi said.
Relations between the two countries “are based on mutual love and respect, and they have blossomed into a variety of fruitful partnerships,” he added.
“Pakistan and the UAE share the same principles of tolerance and inclusiveness as being the main guarantees for peace and stability in the region.”
The agreement, funded by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), was signed by UAE-PAP Director Abdullah Khalifa Al-Ghafli and Maj. Gen. Anwarul Haq Chaudhry of the Pakistani Army, in the presence of Al-Zaabi and Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa.
At the end of the signing ceremony, a memorial plaque was presented to Bajwa marking the 51st anniversary of the drive to provide humanitarian aid to Pakistan, initiated in 1967 by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, UAE president and ruler of the emirate of Abu Dhabi.

Pakistan, UAE sign $200M assistance deal