Pakistan offers tremendous business opportunities for foreign entrepreneurs in view of Islamabad's liberal policies and recent macroeconomic progress, Commerce Minister Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan said while pledging to facilitate American investment in various sectors of the economy.
"Pakistan offers liberal and transparent investment policies in different sectors and opportunities for the business communities of the two countries," the Minister said addressing members of US-Pakistan Business Council. Khurram Dastgir, who co-chaired Washington for US-Pakistan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) Council meeting with US Trade Representative also apprised the gathering of Islamabad's efforts towards predictable economic growth through trade liberalisation and the Joint Action Plan the US and Pakistan unveiled this week to advance bilateral co-operation.
The Joint Action Plan on trade and investment over next five years follows Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House last year, which provided a fresh impetus to the bilateral relationship, the Minister said. Esperanza G Jelalian, President of the Council, welcomed the Commerce Minister and his delegation to the meeting at the US Chamber of Commerce. Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Jalil Abbas Jilani also attended the meeting.
In his address, Minister Khurram Dastgir said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government inherited a situation where energy shortage alone caused a loss of about two percent of our GDP annually. "Promoting bilateral business, trade and investment in Pakistan is a key component of the Government's policy". "We are currently engaging in efforts on economic recovery, improved security and good governance to attract local and foreign investment."
The commerce Minister cited the growing international confidence in Pakistan's economic prospects since the inception of the government. In this respect, he said the Foreign Direct Investment, which had gone to its lowest in last decade, has started to pick up. From $820.7 million in the year 2011-12, it has registered a jump of 76.31%, taking it to $1447.3 million in the year 2012-13. Moreover, there has been a 6.1% increase in Net FDI in 2013-14 (July-March) as compared to 2012-13 (July-March).
Islamabad, he said, attaches the highest priority to improvement in the energy scenario, which is the ideal sector for foreign investors. In addition to bringing 1,700MW of power to the national system through payment of the circular debt, government is working on several energy projects including Dasu Hydro-power project, Nandipur, Jamshoro coal-power projects, CASA 1,000, Energy-park at Gadani and Neelum-Jhelum.
"We are introducing structural reforms for market development and efficient public sector management. We will ensure fair competition, remove exorbitant taxes, rationalise tariff and policy distortions, ease entry barriers, reduce government involvement and improve regulatory quality." "Most importantly, we will ensure good governance as our core principle," the Minister said.
He also cited a latest survey by Overseas Investors Chamber, according to which business confidence has improved 36 points from 34% negative in August 2012 to 2% positive in August 2013. "There is a keen interest by investors of several major international companies towards investing in Pakistan. Major sectors where opportunities exist include energy, infrastructure, housing, agriculture and others.
"This is evidenced by the performance of the Karachi Stock Exchange, whose index rose by 43.74% from 19,916 on 11th May 2013 to 28,629.63 on 5th May 2014." Besides, foreign remittances have increased by more than 10 percent to $9 billion in the first seven months of the current fiscal year. The GDP growth is accelerating towards four percent and within the next three years, the government plans to raise GDP growth rate to 6-7 percent.
The underlying fundamentals of Pakistan's economy remain strong with a robust middle class consumer base rise in rural incomes, and rapid telecom and media penetration across the country, he said. Pakistan's exponential growth in technology adoption and the government's mandate to develop infrastructure allows for the youth based and fast growing technology sector to complement US innovation and industry, the Commerce Minister said.
The Minister noted that a number of major US corporations and businesses have a long history of association with Pakistan and boast extremely good returns on their investments. "This has understandably encouraged some of these companies to expand their investments in Pakistan. We welcome this and strongly feel that US programmes can play a key role in disseminating their good stories and business experiences in Pakistan to potential American investors."
He thanked the Council for its longstanding support for expansion in trade and investment relations between Pakistan and the United States. President of the Council Ms Jelalian reaffirmed the organisation's firm commitment to boost co-operation in trade and investment areas to further expand the key Pakistan-US bilateral relationship.
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