Pakistani missions abroad identified 317 potential investors, who are interested to invest in different sectors including energy, telecommunication, transportation and shipping, property development and others. The Senate sub-committee on commerce was informed on Tuesday that the potential investors are Pakistanis, who left the country immediately after the partition and majority of them are currently living in Arab countries.
The committee was also informed that Pakistanis living in Iran, Bangladesh, Germany, France and Sri Lanka are not interested to invest in their motherland. The country-wise break-up of potential investors identified by the missions include: Australia 18, UAE 63, Thailand 1, Qatar 18, Hong Kong 29, Indonesia 9, Kenya 7, Malaysia 16, UK 45, US 39, Saudi Arabia 20, South Africa 12, Tanzania 4, Canada 36.
The committee, which met with Senator Karim Ahmed Khawaja in the chair, was briefed about the working of Pakistani missions abroad to convince overseas Pakistanis to invest in Pakistan. The committee summoned the Board of Investment (BoI) of all the four provinces, Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the next meeting for devising a comprehensive policy to encourage overseas Pakistanis to invest in their motherland.
Chairman Senator Karim Ahmed Khawaja, while expressing concern over increasing trend among overseas Pakistanis to invest in other countries like India, Bangladash and Sri Lanka instead of their own country, said that a workable investment strategy should be formed on war footing to encourage the overseas investors.
Additional Secretary Ministry of Commerce, Abbas Makin, while briefing the committee about the queries by the interested investors, said queries were related to investment policy, security matter and hospitality. The interested investor want that investment policy should comprise (a) specific areas to be opened for investment (b) some special incentives /attractions (c) concrete proposals for investment (d) facilitation team to assist new investors through one window operation to remove bottlenecks in starting a new business (e) format of proposed investment conference, Abbas Makin told the committee, and said investors also wanted the security assurance of life, property and finances.
He said it was the mandate of BoI to formulate investment policy, adding the BoI had already taken several measures--preparation of Foreign Direct Investment Policy (FDI) 2013-17 to implement the investment policy and enactment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) act 2012. The committee was informed that the BoI has set-up an Overseas Pakistanis Investment Cell (OPIC) to assist/ facilitate the overseas Pakistanis.