Asian Development Bank Ordinance, 1971

This Ordinance gives legal effect in Pakistan to the international agreement establishing the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which Pakistan signed and is a member of. It is short and mostly administrative: Section 1 sets its extent to the whole of Pakistan and backdates its effect to 19 December 1966. Section 2 defines "Agreement" and "Bank".

Section 3 requires the Federal Consolidated Fund to cover Pakistan's subscription payments and other sums owed to the Bank under the Agreement, and directs that any money Pakistan receives from the Bank also goes into that Fund. Section 4 makes the State Bank of Pakistan the depository for the Bank's Pakistani currency holdings and other assets. Section 6 lets the Federal Government make rules to carry out the Ordinance.

Section 5 is the operative core: it gives the force of law in Pakistan to the parts of the Agreement reproduced in the Schedule, with a proviso that this does not exempt the Bank from customs duty on goods it later resells in Pakistan, or from duties that are really charges for services rendered. The Federal Government can update the Schedule by Gazette notification if the underlying Agreement provisions are amended.

The Schedule itself (Articles 48-57 of the Agreement) sets out the Bank's legal status and privileges: full legal personality to contract, hold property, and sue or be sued; broad immunity from legal process (except suits arising from its borrowing, guarantee, or securities activities); immunity of its property, assets, and archives from seizure or search; freedom from restrictions on its assets; equal treatment for its official communications; immunities for its Governors, Directors, and staff acting in an official capacity; and a wide exemption from taxation and customs duties on the Bank itself, its income, and the securities it issues or guarantees. The Bank may waive any of these protections at its own discretion.

The text shown carries footnotes indicating it has already been amended at least twice — validated by the Validation of Laws Act, 1975, and with "Federal Consolidated Fund" substituted for the original wording by a 1975 Presidential Order — so a reader relying on specific figures or fund names should confirm against the current official text.