World Bank Managing Director Shengmun Zhang arrived Thursday for talks with Pakistani leaders on poverty and development as Islamabad struggles to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF) targets.

Pakistan will be hoping to impress Zhang, who is making his first tour of the region following his recent appointment to head the portfolio for South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and North America.

He will meet military ruler General Pervez Musharraf during his five-day stay, as well as Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, central bank governor Ishrat Hussein and business leaders, bank officials said.

’This is an introductory visit.

His job is to look after the corporate side of things - macro issues are not involved." one bank official told the news agency.

Pakistan is hoping for development and poverty alleviation assistance from the Asian Development Rank (ADB) and the World Bank following its com mitment late last year to tough reforms under an IMF standby facility.

The fund agreed to lend Pakistan 59(i million dollars over IU months, with a view to approving a larger poverty reduction programme il the short-term arrangement is successful.

That deal marked Pakistan's reentry into international financial circles after about two years in the wilderness when earlier IMF assistance was suspended due to

missed targets.

"Pakistan has almost met the targets of the first six months of the current fiscal year." Aziz said ahead of his (rip to Paris last week for talks on debt rescheduling w ith international creditors.

Following the IMF deal, Pakistan is hoping for a World Bank structural adjustment loan worth 350 million dollars by July this year.

Islamabad also expects to receive 525 million dollars from the ADB in the form of programme loans covering agriculture, trade, energy, the legal system and microcredit.

Zhang, who has just finished a trip to Bangladesh, is scheduled to visit slum areas in the southern port city of Karachi.

About a third of Pakistan's 140

million people are unable to meet their daily nutritional needs, but successive governments have been forced to divert funds from poverty reduction programmes to pay off huge foreign debts.

Pakistan has already received the first instalment of 192 million dollars under the IMF standby facility, which helped service its crushing 38 billion dollars in foreign debts.

The second tranche of 211 million dollars is earmarked to be disbursed in March.

Islamabad had been lobbying for a much larger IMF facility but the fund said that while it supported the military government's economic adjustment and reform programme, significant doubts remained.