Foreign companies invested billions of rupees in Pakistan during fiscal year 2014-15 under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), according to a report. Of the country's federating units, Sindh, from where the majority of OICCI members operate, benefited the most from CSR spending of foreign investors.
Themed as "Combining the Power of Social Responsibility", the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) recently unveiled the Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2014-15.
The report includes CSR activities of 44 out of 195 members of OICCI.
These companies invested over Rs 2.5 billion during FY2014-15 on account of what the report says "social investments and charitable donations" to what OICCI Chief Executive and Secretary General M. Abdul Aleem said meet the country's societal needs in critical areas.
The social sectors that attracted the financial and non-financial contributions from the foreign investors primarily include education, health, community development, environment, disaster relief and infrastructure development.
According to the OICCI report, during the year under review 93 percent of the participating OICCI members' CSR activities remained focused on education, 91 percent on health, 70 percent community development, 64 percent each on environment and disaster relief, 16 percent on infrastructure development and 32 percent on other sectors.
In collaboration with their 137 local social sector partners, the offshore investors positively impacted the lives of about 18 million Pakistanis from across Pakistan. Of primary concern to OICCI members were the health and education sectors wherein Aleem said the OICCI members took initiatives like making donations to reputed hospitals, medical camps, blood donation camps, health awareness campaigns, setting up schools and funding educational development. "This outreach is exceptional and added value to the lives of beneficiaries," the CE/Secretary General said.
In terms of geographical spread, he said about 33 percent of OICCI's CSR activities were carried out in Sindh, 27 percent in Punjab, 14 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkwa (KPK), 13 percent in Balochistan, 7 percent in Azad Jammu & Kashmir and 6 percent in Gilgit Baltistan.
The participating members estimated the number of man-hours invested in these CSR works at over 400,000.
The report shows a leading auto firm, invested PKR 70 million for various activities positively impacting the society with the group motto of: "What has been earned from the society must be shared with the society".
"CSR is no longer restricted to the amount of money a company contributes to charity, neither is it restricted to the concept of simple philanthropy," said Aleem.
Today, he said, the term entailed the involvement of corporate entities, local or foreign, in activities that could improve the quality of people's lives and the effect of these activities on the organisation's workforce, customers, communities where they operate, the society at large, shareholders, governments and various other stakeholders.
"In past, business organisations mainly concentrated on the economic results of their decisions. Today, however, they also take into account the moral and social consequences of these decisions," the OICCI official viewed.
OICCI members acknowledged that CSR and the maintenance of high ethical standards was not an option but an obligation for all businesses, said the OICCI chief executive. There was a need for the foreign firms operating in Pakistan, he said, for complementing the efforts of federal and provincial governments to uplift living standards of the society and thereby making CSR activities a key factor for an organisation's success and sustainability.
"We are confident that foreign investors who are members of OICCI will continue to invest, as a responsible corporate citizen, towards the economic community development, thereby creating opportunities for employee development and promoting well-being and shared values in the country," Aleem hoped.
OICCI is a 195-member representative body of investors from 35 countries in Pakistan which contributes about one-third of Pakistan's total taxes and has created job opportunities, directly or indirectly, for over one million local people. The OICCI members' capital expenditure stood at PKR 1 .4 billion in 2014.