A meeting, jointly chaired by President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Monday here identified major hurdles in investment, and decided to launch 'President's Investment Initiative', a programme to simplify the procedure and formalities for investors.
Sources said that the meeting listed tiresome process for land acquisition as one of the major hurdles in setting up new projects in the country, and decided that provincial governments should be directed to come up with a solution to the problem and ensure transfer of land to investors for new projects within the shortest period. For this purpose, the meeting discussed proposal of setting up a 'land bank'.
It was decided during the meeting that the government would further streamline the investment climate in the country to achieve a foreign investment of 27 billion dollars during the next five years.
The meeting agreed that the 'land bank' could facilitate the investors in getting land for any project at both levels -- public and private sector -- and also facilitate them in getting funds from commercial banks for any big initiative.
One of the participants of the meeting told Business Recorder that the President and Prime Minister were unanimous that complex and lengthy process was discouraging investors to bring investment into Pakistan's many areas, and the government needed some extraordinary measures to change the situation.
The participant said: "There was consensus at the meeting that the pace of investment was not satisfactory and that the situation needed extraordinary measures for a U-turn."
Monday's meeting was the second in a week, which, instead of painting a rosy picture regarding investment and facilities being offered to investors, discussed threadbare the situation on the ground. It noted with concern that a number of mega projects could not materialise even after passing the period mentioned in the feasibility, and the investors were running from one office to another to complete the formalities.
Initiative is launched with a specific purpose of simplifying the formalities and procedure to set up the new projects. Other areas, which were termed as 'speed breaker' by the meeting, included problematic procedure of getting clearance from different government departments, lengthy process of getting gas, electricity and water for new projects. The taxation system was also another area, which was discussed at the meeting.
Sources said it was noted at the top level that taxation system was being revamped to make it fit in the changing scenario, and it was being made investor-friendly, but the tax officials needed to carry on the laborious process of reforms to make a difference.
Sources said that lethargic attitude of bureaucracy was also considered one reason that was discouraging investors. The delayed response to investors from various government departments has been a cause of concern at the highest level. The issue is being debated at various levels.
Sources said that Monday-like meetings would be held on monthly basis where the President and Prime Minister would jointly review the progress in areas, which were causing difficulties to investors.
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