Embassy of the Republic of Korea to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

The children health is essential to ensure substantial active workforce availability required for the sustainable economic growth and prosperity of a country. It is more critical for the country like Pakistan, which is experiencing second highest child mortality rate in the West Asia. In this backdrop, the Government of the Republic of Korea has pledged US $ 46 Million Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF), concessional financing for establishment of Children’s hospital in Northern Sindh, which has the highest mortality rate among infants and children under 5-year in Pakistan.

The feasibility study of the 200-beds children hospital has already been completed by the Korean consultants. The health department of the provincial government Sindh will be project executing agency and will be responsible for the planning, implementation, management, supervision of the project. While, the contactors and consultants related to the project would be selected among the reputed and credible Korean companies through competitive bidding.

The project financing is being provided on the request of the Economic Affairs Division, Government of Pakistan under the signed bilateral Framework Agreement for EDCF assistance. The financing will be administrated by EXIM Bank of Korea, having nominal interest rate of 0.1 percent per annum with maturity period of 40 years including a grace period of 10 years.

The province was in dire need of such a specialized hospital for children and it would act as an umbrella for all the child related health facilities including child’s pre-birth care and first of its kind Order Communications System (OCS) in the public sector hospitals of the country.

The Embassy expects that the state-of the-art children hospital on completion will help to overcome the mortality issues as well as to improve the quality of life and the accessibility to health services for the people in Sindh considering the country’s present children’s health portfolio.