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 On 25th March 2014, Pakistan President His Excellency Mamnoon Hussain inaugurated the 2nd South Asia Procurement Conference in Islamabad and launched procurementlearning.org knowledge and networking portal and the Certificate Program in Public Procurement (CPPP) powered by South Asia Procurement Services of the World Bank.
President Mamnoon Hussain has also called for increased regional cooperation on public procurement. He suggested to the SAARC Secretariat to consider taking lead role in promoting mutual cooperation and opening SAARC Public Procurement Office in Islamabad.
The president, in his inaugural speech, also praised the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for their support in holding the conference and said that both institutions had always played a visible role in the development of the region.
He felicitated the outgoing chair of the conference, Nepal, for its hard work and expressed the hope that the transfer of the position to Pakistan would help in building on the gains of the past and making the forum more vibrant and dynamic.
The conference was attended by Managing Director and officials of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, the auditor general, country directors of the WB and the ADB, heads of procuring agencies of the South Asian countries and representative of the SAARC secretary general.
 Mr. Felipe Goya Goddard, Regional Procurement Manager of the World Bank introduced the audience to the concept, aims and objectives of the learning portal launched by World Bank in association with the Charter of Public Procurement Studies (CPPS). He hoped that the learning opportunities extended to all procurement professionals in the region free of cost will be utilized to its best potential and help develop a strong cadre of procurement professioanls in all countries in South Asia
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