Pakistan Steel Chairman Abdul Qayyum has said that Pakistan is an investor-friendly country and offers ample opportunities for investment in various sectors of economic activities.
He was addressing a group of national and international pre-qualified bidders and their representatives at Pakistan Steel Metallurgical Training Centre Auditorium on Friday.
The chairman said that steel is among the few best sectors for foreign and domestic investors. Pakistan has a captive market of 160 million consumers with bright commercial openings to Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics.
He said that the strategic location of Pakistan Steel (PS), next to Port Qasim, National Highway, main national railway track and the international airport has made communications easy and cheap. It has an in-built sea channel, potable water facilities, integral power generation facilities and its highly robust plant presents a lifetime opportunity to any bidder to convert the present steel mills into a gold mine, with marginal investment.
He said, "Pakistan Steel has a sub-economic size which has in-built potential for expansion to three million tons per year, which is mandatory to meet the ever growing demands of a surging economy with unprecedented GDP growth of over 8 percent."
General Qayyum told the potential bidders that the country's infrastructure development plan was likely to unfold in the foreseeable future, covering construction of big dams, gas line from Iran, Gwadar Port upgrading, airports at Islamabad and Gwadar, extreme housing needs in the entire country and urgent steel needs for rehabilitation of earthquake hit area.
He asked the bidders to come up with maximum bids to "grab this opportunity".