Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that because of consistency in policies and a wide-ranging structural reforms agenda based on de-regulation, liberalisation, privatisation and transparency, Pakistan has become a destination of choice for investors.
He was talking to Moriji Kanada, President of Metal One Corporation of Japan, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi and Sojitz groups, who called on him at the Governor's House here on Thursday. Metal One Corporation is the world's largest steel trading company with an annual turnover of 24 billion dollars, who have invested in a modern steel plant to be built at Karachi.
The Prime Minister said that record foreign investment of 8.4 billion dollars in Pakistan last year clearly indicated the trust of investors in the policies initiated by the present government. Now Pakistan stood on a solid footing and had strong fundamentals as well as substantive structural reforms to attract more investments in days to come, he added.
The Prime Minister said that all the economic indicators were showing positive trend in Pakistan and during the last five years the per capita income and size of the economy had doubled. Currency was strong, reserves had crossed 16 billion dollars, exports and remittances had increased, while inflation and poverty were reducing, he pointed out.
The Prime Minister said Pakistan had a unique demographic advantage over other countries of having 100 million of its population below the age of 25. He said that because of the economic turn-around achieved by Pakistan during the last five years, the middle class was growing and the country offered attractive investment opportunities in several sectors including telecom, information technology, oil and gas, financial services, engineering, agri-business and real estate.
The Prime Minister also mentioned that Pakistan's location at the confluence of three of the most important regions of the world ie Central Asia, South Asia and Middle East also gave the country a competitive edge over other countries in the region.
The Prime Minister pointed out that because of high economic growth during the last few years and expansion in various fields particularly the construction sector, the demand for steel products in the country had sharply increased.
The Prime Minister told the visitor that the government was also improving an end to end logistics chain in Pakistan to improve productivity and competitiveness of the industrial sector. Under the National Trade Corridor plan, he said, improvements were being made in the system of railways, roads and highways.
He referred to recent launched of Vision 2030 programme and said it aimed at completing socio-economic transformation of the country and envisaging a developed industrialised, prosperous Pakistan through rapid and sustainable development.
Talking about Pakistanis relations with Japan, the Prime Minister said that Pakistan and Japan had always enjoyed close bilateral relations and the two countries should work for further strengthening of the existing relations to open up new vistas of co-operation and understanding in all fields.
Japan, he said, was an important trade and development partner of Pakistan as it had always supported us in challenging times and provided the largest number of development loans. He informed that Pakistan had some of the most revered Buddhist sites in the northern parts of the country, which attracted many tourists each year.
He said Pakistan appreciated investment of the Mitsubishi group in Pakistan and hoped that the group would avail more business opportunities in the country. The Prime Minister was apprised that Cold Roll Steel Mill, whose ground-breaking ceremony took place later on Thursday, would produce a type of steel not currently under production in Pakistan. Besides its import substitution benefits, the project would generate employment opportunities.