Pakistan finmin seeks investments in Washington meetings with Deloitte, IFC executives

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Muhammad Aurangzeb meeting with the Deloitte team on the sidelines of the WB/IMF Spring Meetings 2025, in Washington D.C., on April 21, 2025. (GOP)
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Updated 21 April 2025
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Pakistan finmin seeks investments in Washington meetings with Deloitte, IFC executives

  • Aurangzeb discusses cooperation in private sector reforms, energy transition, sound municipal finance, employment with IFC team
  • Pakistan finmin seeks investments in Washington meetings with Deloitte, IFC executivesDiscusses energy reforms, extraction, marketing of critical minerals, privatization, technology, crypto policy with Deloitte executives

KARACHI: Pakistani Minister for Finance and Revenue, Muhammad Aurangzeb, held separate meetings on Monday with executives from Deloitte and the International Finance Corporation and discussed cooperation in multiple areas like energy and private sector reforms and critical minerals.

Aurangzeb left for the US last week to attend the World Bank Group/IMF Spring 2025 Meetings from Apr. 21-26. A statement from his office said on Saturday besides meeting with top officials of the World Bank and the IMF, the finance minister would also meet with finance ministers and counterpart leaders of China, the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye and officials of global credit rating agencies, commercial and investment banks.

On Monday, Aurangzeb met Hela Cheikhrouhou, Regional Vice President of the International Finance Corporation, and her team.

“Both sides explored cooperation in the areas of private sector reforms, energy transition, sound municipal finance and full employment,” a statement from the finance ministry said. “The Minister appreciated the lead role of IFC in raising $2.5 billion in debt financing for Reko Diq Copper & Gold Mine Project in Balochistan. 

Aurangzeb also separately met with a team from Deloitte and briefed them on Pakistan’s macroeconomic outlook, the government’s sectoral development agenda and export-led growth priorities, the finance ministry said. 

“Explored cooperation in the areas of energy sector reforms, extraction and marketing of critical minerals, privatization, technology, crypto policy and operationalization of Country Partnership Framework (CPF),” the statement added. 


Hundreds of migrants, including Pakistanis, land in Greece after search operation at sea

Updated 19 December 2025
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Hundreds of migrants, including Pakistanis, land in Greece after search operation at sea

  • Rescued migrants were taken to a temporary facility on Crete after reaching the port of Agia Galini
  • Greece has made deportations of rejected asylum seekers a priority under its migration policy

ATHENS: Greece’s Coast Guard rescued about 540 migrants from a fishing boat off ​Europe’s southernmost island of Gavdos on Friday, one of the biggest groups to reach the country in recent months.

The migrants were found during a Greek search operation some 16 nautical miles (29.6 km) off Gavdos, a Coast Guard statement said. They are all well and are being taken ‌to a ‌temporary facility on the nearby ‌island ⁠of ​Crete after ‌reaching the port of Agia Galini, a Coast Guard official said, adding most of the migrants were men from Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan.

In a separate incident on Thursday, the EU’s border agency Frontex rescued 65 men and five women from two ⁠migrant boats in distress off Gavdos, the Greek Coast Guard ‌said.

Greece was on the front ‍line of a 2015-16 ‍migration crisis when more than a million people ‍from the Middle East and Africa landed on its shores before moving on to other European countries, mainly Germany.

Flows have ebbed since then, but both Crete ​and Gavdos — the two Mediterranean islands nearest to the African coast — have seen a steep rise ⁠in migrant boats, mainly from Libya, reaching their shores over the past year and deadly accidents remain common along that route.

Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Italy will be eligible for help in dealing with migratory pressures under a new EU mechanism when the bloc’s pact on migration and asylum enters into force in mid-2026.

The center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said deportation of rejected asylum ‌seekers will be a priority.