Total foreign investment in the country is expected to hit the benchmark of one billion dollars by the end of the current fiscal year (June 30).
Showing visible sign of improvements it has already reached at $620 million in the first nine months as against the average annual inflows of 500-550 million dollars foreign investment in the country.
Board of Investment (BoI) Chairman Waseem Haqqie stated this while talking to newsmen after delivering a speech at a curtain-raiser ceremony of upcoming International Conference on Investment Opportunities in Balochistan (ICIB, 2004) on Thursday.
When asked about the security concerns in Balochistan, he replied that after the occurrence sporadic incidents of violence in some parts of the province the issue was being taken up at the highest level and stringent security measures were being adopted in this regard.
However, he dispelled the impression that there was any serious security problem in Balochistan and said that a few incidents could not be referred to suggest the overall law and order situation of area was bad as these were purely targeted ones.
Supplementing his arguments he referred to largest and uninterrupted gas supplies from the area and several MNCs operating freely in the remote parts of that province.
Earlier speaking on the occasion, he highlighted the reforms being brought in BoI after the President Musharraf's take-over and recounted the subsequent constitution of 25-member Board of Directors with an ample representation of private sector and paradigm shift in BoI approach from only foreign investment-oriented one to local investment and industry as well as the big achievements.
During the reforms, he maintained, we identified four potential sectors that included oil and gas, power, telecommunication, and agriculture as our top priority.
He pointed out that out of the total potential 27 billion barrels available oil only 3 percent so far had been recovered, leaving still a vast opportunity to be tapped. While, in gas 85 percent of the total existing potential yet to be tapped, he added.
In power sector, he mentioned that due to high rates of furnace oil the primary focus of the government to reverse the existing 70 and 30 percent thermal and hydel power generation capacity respectively.
In this connection, he hoped that after the operation of Ghazi Barotha power generation the gap between thermal and hydel power generation would be narrowed down to 66 and 34 percent respectively.
About telecommunication sector, he said that there was 4-5 billion dollars investment capacity in the next 3-4 years in this sector.
He admitted that KESC and Wapda were the main concerns of the government as both government entities continued to incurred heavy losses.
However, he said that a lot of improvement had been brought in both the organisations in past few years and hoped that KESC privatisation would be completed within the ongoing year as five interested parties had already submitted their expression of interest.
Praising the Musharraf regime's deregulated and liberal policies he stated that these policies had started to bear fruits and in this regard he augmented his assertion with the references of high foreign exchange reserves, increased exports, positive WB, IMF reports, improved macro-economic indicators and credit rating etc. about enhanced imports, he contended that it was mainly due to 35 percent increase in import of machinery which would certainly bring revolutionary changes in the manufacturing sector of the country.
He further asserted that in the first nine months of the current fiscal year the manufacturing sector of the country, including automobile, cement etc. had registered robust growth and increased by 15 percent.
Elaborating the main objectives of the investment conference he said that it was basically aimed at promoting the investment climate of the country through effective marketing of existing opportunities by the respective provincial investment committees.
He termed oil an gas, mineral and mining, value addition, SME and agriculture as the prospective sectors for investment in Balochistan.
The conference is scheduled to be held on May 8th, 2004 at Quetta's Serena Hotel.
Others who also spoke on the occasion were Islamic Chamber of Commerce & Industry Secretary General Aqueel Al-Jassem, BoI DG Akhlaq Ahmed Malik and representatives of E-Commerce Gateway Singapore.
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