960404

BOI anticipates $5bn capital per annum

Pakistan set to receive

$3bn investment in '95-96

KARACHI: Pakistan is poised for an all time high foreign investment of $3 billion during fiscal year 1995-96 because of 'unprecedented incentives offered to the prospective investors'.

"Only last year we had more than $1 billion investment, compared to just $300 million of last 15 years. For the first time, the government had offered unique package of incentives to both local and foreign investors due to which investment flow has been more than encouraging. Things have started working in a big manner, and we have projections of having over $5 billion investment every year after the year 2000", said Secretary Board of Investment (BOI) Syed Mohibullah Shah in an interview.

He said that over 80 feasibility studies had been conducted by the BOI to attract investors in various fields, specially in the agro-food, chemical, construction, hotels and tourism, power generation, electronics, communication and infrastructure sectors.

"We have drawn a wide variety of investment, specially for North America and Far East which is 38 percent of the total investment, followed by United Kingdom, to be the largest investor in Pakistan", he added.

The Americans are investing in a big way and, according to initial estimates, they would bring in about four to five billion dollars investment during the next few years, he said. In this regard, he referred to visit in 1994 of U.S. Secretary of Energy Hazel o'Leary that helped signing of MoUs of $4 billion investment.

Later her deputy came to Islamabad with a big delegation and signed further $3 billion agreements for hard investment in power generation. Shah said that U.S. investors had so far invested more than one billion dollars in a record period of time in Pakistan.

Answering a question, he said that out of the $2 billion MoUs, signed during visit of Canadian Prime Minister to Pakistan recently, hard investment worth $900 million has been made. He said MoUs of more than $25 billion have been signed so far. "These are not mere MoUs, but are generally helping in having real investment throughout the country", he said.

About investment from Gulf countries, he said, though some of the agreements were signed for setting up oil refineries, still there could be a lot of investment, specially by overseas Pakistanis living in Middle East.

He regreted that investment from the Gulf had not taken advantage of Pakistani markets and incentives offered by the government in this behalf. "We are now trying through our ambassadors in the Gulf to help explore investment opportunities", he added.

He said that Gulf investors were better placed to get advantage of the investment facilities in Pakistan. BOI has decided to offer awards to those overseas Pakistanis living in the Gulf who had made huge investments in Pakistan in order to encourage investors from the Middle East, he added.

He pointed out that the investors could invest in petro-chemical and agro-food industries. "We produce ten million tonnes of fresh fruits which could be sold to Gulf countries". He said the BOI was planning to arrange seminars and investment conferences in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The BOI was working with various business chambers of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman to finalise dates for these seminars and conferences.

Answering a question, Mohibullah Shah said Pakistan was going to be a gateway for Central Asia. He hoped investors from Middle East and other parts of the world would like to have investment in Pakistan in view of its strategic location.

Like the Gulf, he said, Central Asian States had huge resources of oil, gas, coal, metal, cotton and wheat. Whosoever will set up business in Pakistan, he could immensely benefit from Central Asian States by exporting their products there.-PPI