ISLAMABAD -- The World Bank Tuesday announced it was planning up to $1.8 billion in aid to Pakistan over three years while giving high marks to the country's military dictator for reviving the economy.

In its "country assistance strategy" (CAS) unveiled Tuesday, the World Bank said it was contemplating lending $400 to $600 million annually to Pakistan for three years starting in 2003. The World Bank said Pakistan had achieved a "remarkable" turnaround since the end of the 1990's and a major factor was the "strong leadership in the country with internal cohesion and a clear sense of direction."

General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999 and subsequently disbanded the country's Parliament and declared himself president.

"Pakistan has started the new millennium with more hope," the World Bank said.

"The policy reform record of the military government which took over on October 12, 1999 has gradually renewed hope that... development challenges can be seriously tackled."

The bank praised Musharraf for allocating a third of places in local government for women in this Islamic country of 145 million people and credited him with a "far reaching devolution program" to improve public service delivery to the regions, AFP reported.

"Despite severe shocks, the worst drought in decades, the GDP...

grew by 2.7 percent in 2000/01, inflation is low and reserves have reached $3.5 billion on march 31, 2002... their highest level in a decade," the bank said.

It said it was impressed by Pakistan's commitment to the reform agenda in the past two and a half years under Musharraf. But it warned that high lending would continue "only as long as this commitment remains firm."

Musharraf has called parliamentary elections in October, in accordance with a supreme court and his repeated pledges to restore civilian rule within three years of his takeover.

But in the lead up to the first national polls since 1999 he has announced a raft of proposed amendments to the 1973 constitution, several of which would give the military a permanent role in politics.

The military ruler has also brought in several restrictions on candidates for election, which are seen as directed at keeping two former prime ministers -- Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto -- from returning to power.