ISLAMABAD, June 17: The European Union and Germany will provide 303 million euros development assistance to Pakistan during 2011-13 covering priority areas, like energy, education, health governance and trade development.

Germany will also provide 12 million euros for the multi-donor trust fund being administered by the World Bank to support critical reconstruction and peace-building initiatives in crisis-affected areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Fata and Balochistan.

The European Union committed a grant of 75 million euros annually for a period of three years under the multi-annual indicative programme for 2011-13.

German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dirk Niebel and European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs exchanged separate agreements with Federal Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh here on Friday.

The signing of agreements was preceded by joint EU-Germany negotiations with a Pakistan delegation led by Finance Minister Hafeez Shaikh.  The heads of EU and German delegations appreciated the recent measures implemented by the government to mobilise domestic resources, rationalise expenditures and reform the energy sector and expressed the hope that Pakistan would continue reform process for achieving macro-economic stability and high growth.

The signing of agreement with Germany of 78 million euro marked the 50th anniversary of Pakistan-German development cooperation.

The amount finalised under recently-concluded bilateral negotiations is devoted to priority areas like education, energy, health and governance sectors during fiscal year 2011-12.

According to details announced later at a press briefing, one million euro will be spent on education, 48.5 million euro on energy, 13 million euro on health, and nine million euro on governance, besides 6.5 million euros for cooperation outside priority areas.

Under the agreement signed for multi-annual indicative programme for 2011-13, European Union will extend development assistance to the tune of 225 million euros to Pakistan.