Pakistan Real Estate Investment Forum (PREIF) has appreciated government's move to Amend Income Tax Ordinance 2001. Addressing a press conference on Wednesday at Karachi Press Club, President PREIF Shaban Elahi said that positive business activities are expected after the approval of bill of amendments in the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 as local and overseas investors have also hailed this decision.
General Secretary PREIF Ghazanfar Mehboob, Major Naveed Bajwa Retd, Jawed Rehman, Hassan Basharat, Imran Elahi, Asghar Ali Bhutto, Abdul Wahid and Colonel Mohammad Jawed Retd. were also present during briefing. Shaban urged the government that there is need of differentiation of black money and undocumented economy to restore the investors' confidence.
"Illegal or black money must be condemned in all forms but investment in real estate sector is not black money; it is hard-earned money of resident investors and foreign remittances sent by overseas Pakistanis which has become undocumented due to decades-old practice of registering property at DC rates and government's lack of interest in revising the DC rates to bring them in-line with market rates", he added.
As per government's statistics, out of the approximately $18 billion foreign remittances, USD 8-9 billion are invested in real estate sector and this is absurd to classify that as illegal money, he mentioned. President PRIEF said that some elements don't want foreign investment in Pakistan; rather they want to push this investment out of country boundaries by creating fear amongst investors.
He said that they are expecting a positive response from investors as before this amendment, undocumented money was going abroad which will stop now. Due to government's timely steps, such undocumented money will now become documented and a booster for national economy. "Unfortunately some elements are not in favour of such investments in Pakistan and want to create a chaos, and hostile environment for new investors to push this huge undocumented money to other countries' real estate", he said.
Shaban said that people, who are against this amendment in the Income Tax Ordinance, should first understand the dynamics of this valuable sector and the genuine issues of legitimate investors. "PREIF voluntarily offers its services to hold dialogues and seminars to bring out both sides of the picture", he added.