Efforts afoot to sustain economic growth: BoI chief

Chairman Board of Investment Waseem Haqqie said here on Sunday that Pakistan economy had now entered the stage of sustained high growth which shall continue through 2015. At present, all indications were that investment from abroad in the power sector would be plus one billion dollars and the same is the case for the telecom and IT sectors.
There was also a new field in which investment from abroad was coming and this is the housing field, he said, adding the investments by international groups in mega projects in Karachi, Lahore & Islamabad were indicative of this trend.
Waseem Haqqie maintained that the period between 1999 to 2001 was of crisis management in the economy, followed by policy formulation and de-regulation till 2003 and from the last two years the efforts are at ensuring high-sustained economic growth that was paying off.
He said that the local and foreign investors had been provided with a level playing field now.
The BoI chief claimed that the foreign exchange regime in Pakistan was also one of the most free in the region. The benefits of de-regulation were most obvious in the telecom-IT sector where the opening up had led to competition, foreign investments in the last financial year of over one and a half billion dollars along with improvement and expansion of services and lowering of costs.
Thus, he said, the consumers had benefited from de-regulation in the telecom field by having better service and lowered costs.
Haqqie declared that in the economic policies the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are to form the backbone and in this connection various measures were underway, whereby the SMEs will be coming forward in bigger numbers.
In this connection, he said, some group from Thailand were expected to be coming soon to advise and assist in respect of canning of fruits and vegetables for encouraging SMEs.
The BoI chief said there were too many taxes at the provincial level and while corruption at the higher level had been eliminated, there was corruption at middle and lower levels that needs to be curbed.
He stressed that complete eradication of corruption is not possible in any society including Pakistan but it can be reduced.
Haqqie said that in Pakistan the cost of land had gone up. This was because Pakistani expatriates after 9/11 were investing more in land acquisition. The BoI chief closing his remarks added that transmission losses in the power sector needed to be overcome.