Pakistan and the US are likely to sign investment treaty during President George W. Bush's visit to Pakistan, commencing Friday.
Both the countries have been working closely on the idea to put in place an investment treaty to encourage bilateral investment in key areas such as oil and gas, IT, textile and many other sectors.
The business community is attaching great hope to US President Bush's visit to Pakistan and subsequent signing of investment treaty. The representatives of the traders and industrialists associations believe that President Bush will bring Pakistan and the US economically and commercially closer to help Islamabad in becoming an important player in the world market.
Pak-US Chamber of Commerce and Industries chairman, who is also co-chairman of Business Panel and Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) former president Iftikhar Ali Malik is upbeat about Bush's visit to Pakistan and believe that it would pay Islamabad good dividend.
In his statement on Thursday, he said that the US should extend support to Pakistan by granting more access to the US markets, besides encouraging American investors to prefer Pakistan over other countries of the South Asia while investing money.
He said Pakistan is an important ally of the US and both enjoy close harmony in almost all the key areas and their long-lasting relationship in areas like trade and investment would further cement their bilateral ties and pay good dividend to both the countries.
Malik said Pakistan is ideally located and it could help many nations in getting access to the Asian republics, and has a competitively affordable and expanding work. Since 1999, Pakistan has achieved significant macro-economic success as recognised by multilateral lending institutions, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Pakistan's foreign investment policy is open and liberal, which is good news for the American companies to invest here.
The US-Pakistan Business Council helps the American corporate sector in identifying opportunities in Pakistan's vast resource-based industries, such as oil, gas and petrochemicals, a fast growing infrastructure sector and other industries such as textiles, garments, software and automotive manufacture.
Traders and industrialists pinpoint great hopes that partnership between the United States and Pakistan, which began over 50 years ago, would reach a high point in the years to come.
Malik said that multinational companies and investors are visiting and investing in Pakistan, with several joint ventures and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) underway in various sectors, and observed that the balance of trade between the US and Pakistan, which currently tilted in favour of the US, should be more balanced.
He said that the private sector the world over has now emerged as the engine of economic growth of a country and business leaders from either side would help in strengthening economic relations between the two trade partners.