Chairman Board of Investment (BoI) Haroon Sharif met Liu Dianxun, Director General of Investment Promotion Agency (CIPA) of Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China on Friday at Beijing. Sharif discussed revival of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CIPA and both sides agreed to revive the cooperation in order to ensure investment promotion in prioritized sectors such as Information Technology, Textiles and Agro-based products.
He further said, "We at the Board of Investment encourage our Chinese friends to invest in Pakistan. In addition to the existing notified 7 Special Economic Zones (SEZs), Pakistan is planning to develop new SEZs under CPEC."
"Development of Rashakai SEZ is a milestone and a first step towards implementation of industrial cooperation under CPEC. Industrial Cooperation was prioritized by the incumbent government with a goal to start implementation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) this year", the Chairman informed. He said that BoI has received concrete investment proposals from local and foreign investors who are interested to invest in Pakistan's priority sectors having immense potential for investment; agro-based Food & Industry, Value added Textile, Tourism and hospitality, IT sector, Light Engineering, and Logistics.
Chairman BoI informed that Pakistan has initiated a reform process to facilitate foreign investment in the country. The BOI team aims to include Pakistan in the list of top 100 economics in Ease of doing Business (EoDB) by 2020, he added.
He further intimated that BOI has established a dedicated unit with the aim to facilitate investors in materializing their projects in Pakistan in a transparent, timely and efficient manner.
Haroon Sharif is visiting China, accompanying Prime Minister Imran Khan to participate in the 2nd Belt and Road Forum, being held in Beijing, China.-PR