Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday said that Pakistan was open for trade and investment, and asked foreign investors to come to join in this "process of peace, development and prosperity". He gave this message to investors and traders at a Pak-Kuwait businessmen meeting held here.
The Amir of Kuwait, Shaikh Sabah Al-Ahmed AL-Jaber Al-Sabah, who is currently visiting Pakistan with a large delegation of Kuwaiti businessmen and investors, also attended the meeting.
Shaukat offered various sectors of industry and economy to Kuwaiti and other investors for investment. These included agriculture, infrastructure development, energy, construction and telecommunication.
He said that Pakistan was a promising market for the international investors and they should take its full advantage and prefer while investing money for good returns.
The Prime Minister said that Pakistan had come a long way during the last seven years and it was evident from IFC and other agencies' improved ratings.
He said that Pakistan has taken a number of revolutionary measures to remove the hurdles in investment and trade and these measures have started paying good dividends in the form of increased foreign investment. He said the government was fully convinced that the policy of liberalisation and privatisation and deregulation was the key to investment and trade, and its policy makers made these three pillars base of their economic policies.
He called Pakistan's reforms programme as a big success and vowed to keep on pushing it forward for the future to reap its benefits for improving the living standard of the people. He said that the government of Pakistan would ensure a conducive atmosphere to the traders and investors to enable them carry out their operations with complete confidence and trust.
However, he made it clear that deregulation did not mean cartelistaion and fleecing the consumers, and the government would not allow anyone for such shortcuts to make profit.
Shaukat said that Pakistan was investing huge moneys for upgradation of its ports, shipping facilities and related infrastructure to provide the best facilities to regional countries as energy, trade and transport corridors.
He said that President General Pervez Musharraf had offered Pakistan's facility as corridor to China and other countries during his speech at the Shanghai conference.
He said that business and investment was the role of the private sector, and Pakistan was making all-out efforts to make its private sector efficient and vibrant to take up its due role. He asked the participants of the meeting to make best use of the interaction and take full advantage of each other's potential.
In his address, Amir of Kuwait Shaikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah said that the meeting gave a good opportunity for the private sector of the two countries to sit together and identify potential areas for taking bilateral trade and investment to an optimal level. He said the meeting clearly demonstrated the existing stable relationship between Pakistan and Kuwait on political, economic and cultural fronts.
He said that Kuwait and Pakistan have the same approach and strategy to take on the international issues like globalisation upfront and subsequently reap their benefits. He expressed confidence that the private sector of his country would work closely with Pakistani counterparts and get benefits of each other's potential and expertise. He said the common bonds between the two brotherly countries represent a solid ground to Pak-Kuwait businessmen for developing the economic relations and take them to new heights.
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