Taking strong exception of the new investment policy of the government, setting target of $5.5 billion's Foreign Direct Investment during the next five years. All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran (APAT) central general secretary Naeem Mir has said the Board of Investment's (BoI) target should be at least $10 billion, as trade deficit of over $21.5 billion will evaporate all benefits of foreign investment leading to the deficit of $8.5 billion in spite of including foreign remittances of $13 billion.
According to a press statement on Wednesday Naeem Mir said that the investment policy cannot be implemented without providing comprehensive framework for creating conducive business environment to attract investors. Mir suggested the Board of Investment (BoI) to evolve a mechanism to become more effective in facilitating investments in the country and for this purpose oversees Pakistanis should be given incentives to invest in agriculture, transportation, telecom and energy sectors, which have huge potential, besides auction of 3G and privatisation of public sector institutions.
He said that it was ironic that Pakistan‚ which had one of the best investment policies on paper‚ failed to attract foreign investment, as the present process of approval of projects was cumbersome and discourages investors. There is need to work on a one window system where the investor can be provided all necessary information and facilities.
APAT general secretary asked the bureaucracy to work on simplification of procedures by revisiting the existing processes without compromising on transparency so that the investors were comforted. He further said that foreign private capital flows showed a negative growth of 38 percent against the world average surge of 20 percent. Even poor neighbouring country of Bangladesh managed to maintain pace with the global trend of foreign investment. He said that Pakistan would have to repay $2.9 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2012-13 in 12 monthly instalment of $241 million each while the country has already repaid $1.2 billion to IMF in 2011-12, out of the total loan of around $8 billion.