Both the ministers stressed the need for greater cooperation and expanding trade and commerce between the two countries in the interest of their people, Pak Tribune reported Tuesday.

They expressed the hope that the current conference of Saarc finance ministers would provide new dimensions for regional cooperation among the member-states of the regional forum.

Finance Secretary Siddiqur Rehman Chaudhury and Bangladesh High Commissioner to Pakistan Sami Mohammad accompanied Shah Abul Hossain.

Omar Ayub Khan briefed his Bangladeshi counterpart about the steps taken by the Pak government to modernise his country's economy that resulted in rapid and sustained growth rate.

He said due to consistency in the government economic reform policies the growth rate of the country had remained between 6 to 8 percent over the past few years.

He said Pakistan energy needs were increasing due to its growing economy. To meet the long-term energy requirement, Omar said, the government had planned utilisation of its abundant water resources by constructing dams. "Ground breaking of Bhasha-Diamir dam had already been initiated," he mentioned.

He said that Pakistan was not only focusing its attention on the production of energy but also on transmission of power to the rural areas for the uplift of the rural population.

Omar also informed his counterpart that Pakistan was laying great emphasis on development of social and physical infrastructure to achieve greater economic development.

The Bangladesh minister said that both the countries were facing identical problems as his country was also faced with energy problem and they had to spend a lot of foreign exchange on import of oil. He said that Bangladesh government had to provide substantial amount of subsidy on this account and his country had also recently increased the prices of fuel in view of escalating prices of gas and oil in international market.

They also discussed the scope of progress in rural areas and were unanimous about improvement in the communication network and other facilities to boost rural economy so that the rural people could reap benefit from overall increase in national income.

Various matters, including tax system prevalent in the two countries, position of balance of payment and poverty reduction programmes also came up for discussion in the two ministers' meeting. They also emphasised integration of regional economy for the welfare of the people.