Pakistan High Commissioner to Britain, Dr Maleeha Lodhi has said that a record foreign direct investment of around $5 billion this year will boost greater international confidence in Pakistan's economy.
Speaking at a largely attended seminar on private equity investment organised by a top law firm in the city, SJ Berwin, Dr Lodhi said investment flows into Pakistan are at a record level.
Nevertheless, she pointed out, Pakistan's remarkable economic turnaround remains under reported and under recognised in the western media. In her presentation titled 'Why Invest in Pakistan', Dr Lodhi stressed that Pakistan's economic reform and growth path had now acquired an autonomy from partisan politics, and was in any case underpinned by a consensus among political parties about the content and direction of economic policy.
Dr Lodhi said there are over 600 multinationals operating in Pakistan which is testimony to the country's investor-friendly climate. "Today foreign investors are very upbeat about Pakistan's economic future." "Recent months have seen major new investment flows into Pakistan. While Pakistan's international bond issues and equity floatation's through GDRs having been consistently oversubscribed and are priced at fine margins."
Pakistan, she asserted, had achieved a decisive transition from a vulnerable to a resurgent and viable economy. "The country's strong recovery is predicated on domestic demand sustaining the growth momentum." Pakistan's envoy said that in the past, geo-strategic location had been a challenge, but in the future Pakistan wanted to convert this into an asset. As a country of about 160 million people with a growing middle class, Pakistan also serves as a gateway to the markets of Central Asia and the adjacent Middle East.
"It is this positioning that Pakistan wants to use to establish itself as a regional economic hub," she added. She cited several factors as to why Pakistan should be considered an attractive option for foreign investment. This included consistency of policy, a stable exchange rate and the capacity and resilience the economy had developed to meet exogenous shocks and mitigate event risks.
Dr Lodhi said that Pakistan had an open and foreign investor-friendly trading and production regime in which investors could freely choose which sector they wished, with no government sanction required. Addressing attention to the level playing field provided to investors, she said, equal treatment is given to foreign and domestic investors, with uniformity in rules and regulations applicable to all.
She also spoke about the standards of corporate governance that have been strengthened and enforced, which should give foreign investors greater reassurance.
In conclusion, Dr Lodhi quoted a recent World Bank report, Doing Business 2007 that ranks Pakistan higher than the countries in South Asia in terms of ease of doing business.
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