Dilating upon the Pakistan economy, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday said the international financial institutions had restarted working with Pakistan and called on the Japanese businesses to expand their operations in the country. The member companies of the Japan-Pakistan Business Co-operation Committee (JPBCC) had a meeting under Chairman Teruo Asada with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar here.
Welcoming the Finance Minister on behalf of the committee members, Asada briefed him about the activities of the committee to increase business and economic co-operation between the two countries. The Japan-Pakistan Business Co-operation Committee has held six meetings with its counterpart, the Japan-Pakistan Business Forum, since 2001. The last such meeting was held in Tokyo in March 2012.
Asada informed the Finance Minister that the member companies of the JPBCC were closely following the positive economic developments in Pakistan and were supportive of the bold economic policies of the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The Finance Minister briefed the member companies of JPBCC in detail about the meetings he had during the visit with the Japanese ministers, organisations such as JICA, JETRO, JBIC as well as corporate sector. The Japanese companies could take advantage of the 2012 law on Special Economic Zones while the government would also announce a new auto policy soon, he added. He also called on the Japanese companies to set up textile industry in Pakistan to take advantage of cheap labour as well as possibility to export to Europe under the GSP Plus scheme.
The Finance Minister further assured the companies that the government was seriously working to improve the energy situation and also achieve security stability. He briefed them of Pakistan''s efforts at closer regional connectivity as well as divestment of shares of various state owned entities.
Asada, in the end, thanked the Finance Minister on behalf of the member companies for giving them a detailed account of Pakistan''s current economic and investment situation and filling an information gap. He expressed the hope that Japanese companies would take advantage of Pakistan''s turnaround by expanding their businesses in various sectors in the country. The meeting was also attended by Chairman, Board of Investment, Ambassador of Pakistan in Tokyo and other senior officials from the Ministry of Finance and Embassy of Pakistan.