Overview
- Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb met UK Development Minister Baroness Chapman in Islamabad for the first federal-level development dialogue since 2017, with British High Commissioner Jane Marriott in attendance.
- Pakistan outlined a stabilisation agenda centered on widening the tax base, tightening debt management, restructuring state‑owned enterprises, improving energy‑sector efficiency, pension reform and public‑sector right‑sizing.
- Chapman reaffirmed UK readiness to provide technical assistance, regulatory support and capacity‑building, with an emphasis on digital tools to reduce leakages, improve transparency and enhance the investment climate.
- The visit featured launches of the next phase of the Pak‑UK Education Gateway with a start‑up fund for research commercialisation, a package of regulatory reforms to improve the business environment and a new Green Compact on climate collaboration.
- Both sides discussed aligning Pakistan’s development spending with World Bank‑supported programmes and addressed provincial coordination, women’s economic participation, demographic and family‑planning policy, social protection and climate resilience as shared priorities.