Board of Investment (BoI) has convened a high level meeting on Tuesday (today) which will be attended by Secretary Defence, representatives of Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division (SPD) and Ministry of Finance to resolve pending issues related to Pak-US Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). The BoI will address the concerns of stakeholders, which have divergent views on the subject of hiring top managerial officials of investing companies in Pakistan, regardless of their nationalities.
Security agencies' position is that Israeli and Indian personnel can be appointed to top management seats in the US investing companies, provided that they are cleared by Pakistani security and intelligence agencies. Meanwhile, Washington is of the view that the treaty will give investors the liberty to hire the services of top managerial personnel of their choice, irrespective of their nationality. Further, they expect that the agreement will do away with the requirement for an NoC and clearance from Pakistan's security apparatus.
Interestingly, country's Strategic Plans Division (SPD) - the body that controls the country's nuclear arsenals, has also expressed its concern on the issue. They are of the view that the foreign companies may not invest in sector of nuclear technology, sources said.
Negotiations on Pak-US BIT started in 2004 and continued till 2006 but remained unresolved. In 2011, BoI began renegotiating with the US team and also kick-started a consultative process with the stake holding line ministries including the Foreign Office, Commerce, Finance, State Bank of Pakistan, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Intellectual Property Organisation, Competition Commission of Pakistan and Ministries of Industries and Communications. Chairman BoI Mohammad Zubair is determined to sign the BIT agreement in coming four months period.
Comments
Comments are closed.