Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Wednesday that political stability, consistency and continuity of economic polices and high corporate profitability is turning Pakistan into a destination of choice for investors from regions as diverse as the Middle East, Asean, Europe and North America.
Pakistan is providing a level-playing field and we make no distinction between local and foreign investors. There is no sector, which is taboo to investment he told the leading fund mangers from around the world at a function organised by the Union Bank of Switzerland.
Over the last seven years, the government has undertaken comprehensive and multi-faceted structural reforms, which have helped to revive and reposition the country, he added.
"Due to consistent investment policies and the provision of level-playing field for investors, there is a substantial increase in investments leading to the generation of economic activities, job opportunities and better growth in the country," he added.
He said due to economic stability, today Pakistan has gained international recognition as one of the top performers of the world and is swiftly moving to occupy a significant place in the global economy as an emerging market.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said continuity and consistency in economic policies have created a conducive business environment and numerous sectors were now open for investment.
Highlighting some of the achievements in economic sector, the prime minister said the budget deficit has been reduced significantly; revenue collection and exports were in double digit; growth consecutively for the last three years; debt burden has declined substantially, and Foreign Direct Investment was all time high.
Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan's economic policies were now more vibrant, transparent, and predictable.
"We are trying to change the system," he said and added that its privatisation policy had been a success as there was more vibrancy in the economy.
UPGRADATION OF PORTS: Pakistan plans major upgrades to its ports, roads and pipelines as it seeks to become the regional hub for energy shipments, said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
He said that his country, which shares borders with major producer Iran as well as booming energy consumers India and China, hoped to take advantage of its geography and feed the region's fast growing needs.
"We are fortunate that Pakistan is located near the energy reserves of the world in the Middle East, so we can tap those and share with our neighbours," he told a news conference here.
"We are working on these corridors to improve the linkages between Central Asia, China, Pakistan and beyond," he said.
Negotiations are still ongoing on the tariffs for a $7 billion natural gas pipeline project running from Iran through Pakistan to India, the prime minister said.
He said that Pakistan was also talking with Turkmenistan about channelling gas through Afghanistan and into Pakistan and India, and cited early-stage talks with China on energy shipped through Karachi sea port.
"With China, we are hoping to attract them to take some of their energy via a pipeline from Karachi to western China, via the land border we have with them," Shaukat said, adding: "It is still preliminary; but we are talking."
The Karachi port "in the next few weeks" will announce construction of a deep water container terminal to serve major vessels and large container carriers used in international shipping, Aziz said.
"Karachi's new deep water container terminal will be a major mother port and hub for container traffic in the region, and can be accessed by countries in Central Asia, by Afghanistan and by Western China," he said.
Shaukat said the deep water Gwadar port, close to the Iranian border, should be ready within a few months and would also boost Pakistan's emerging energy transit role.
"We are positioning it as an energy port, as an energy hub for storage and refining," he said. "We are building road links to Afghanistan and Central Asia which will allow this port to be a major shipment and transit port for energy and other goods."
While offering a few details, Aziz said he expected no barriers to foreign investment in the initiatives. "We think these are projects with great opportunity, and we will offer them to investors from anywhere in the world," he said.
UNCTAD BRIEFING: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that Pakistan was trying to enhance its absorbing capacity to undertake more reforms with a view to increasing its productivity and competitiveness.
Talking to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) Secretary General Supachai Panitchpakdi, he gave an overview of Pakistan's economy.
He said that the country was now in the process of undertaking second-generation reforms, institutional building, infrastructure upgradation and development of human resource.
The prime minister said that Pakistan's economic philosophy was governed by liberalisation, de-regulation and privatisation, which has led to robust growth rates of 6-8 percent. He said that Pakistan's current economy stood at Rs 135 billion, which had doubled in the last seven years.
He urged the Unctad SG to give policy recommendations to developing countries, and added that Pakistan would also like to benefit from these.
The prime minister said Pakistan would like to forge closer relations with Unctad and benefit from its policy recommendations.
The Unctad Secretary General said the world now recognises Pakistan's turnaround and its reform process, which, he added, was a source of encouragement for the developing countries. He also invited Shaukat to address the Unctad meeting.
NORTH KOREA MISSILE TESTS: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan shares concerns over the nature of North Korean missile tests, as it believes in discouraging acts which create uncertainty and tension in any part of the world.
"We naturally share the concern of the nature of this test," he said while responding to a question during an interaction with the local and foreign media at the end of his visit to Geneva where he attended the ECOSOC and the high level UN panel meeting.
Responding to a question about Dr A Q Khan, the prime minister said that Pakistan government did not have any further information on the nuclear scientist and whatever information it had on his activities had been shared with the IAEA.
"Pakistan is a nuclear power ... we are against proliferation of nuclear weapons by any country," he added.
BIN LADEN HUNT: Reports that Osama bin Laden is hiding along the rugged Afghanistan-Pakistan border are purely speculative and nobody hunting the al Qaeda chief knows where he is, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said.
"Nobody has any idea where this gentleman is, because if they did, they would use all their resources to go after the individual and try to capture him," Aziz told journalists.
"There is speculation as to where he is, but certainly nobody has a clue," he said at a press briefing in Geneva, where he had been attending United Nations' meetings.
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