A good thing is that Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has invited Saudi entrepreneurs to invest in Pakistan and avail liberal economic opportunities of the government but bad thing is that he is not offering them a package of incentives or anything else. It is the habit of politicians in this country to issue statements and play a zero sum game with the nation. If Mr Dar is dying in harness to get foreign investment, why does he fail to offer a package of incentives to the Saudis and others to turn the country into financial capital and investment hub of the world in the first place? The country is being run on acquiring loans from every international donor agency and accepting financial assistance from various countries on humanitarian grounds at the cost of national dignity and honour.
It should be cleared in the minds of the political leadership that neither Saudi Arabia is friend of Pakistan nor the United States is an enemy. It is a game of interests and we as a nation will have to protect our own national interests. No doubt Pakistan is a land of opportunities for foreign investors and it can be turned into financial capital of the world but the government needs to provide level playing field to the potential investors. So far the government is claiming to have achieved a sizeable economic progress and the gross domestic product has crossed over $300 billion mark. However, experts believe the government is playing with figures and wants to manipulate the economic progress to gain political mileage. There is no independent authority to confirm the government’s claim that the current GDP volume is real and the growth during the current fiscal year is over 5 percent of the GDP. The real question is how to establishment industrial zones along the China Pakistan Economic Corridor.
The foreign investors need infrastructure and all the basic facilities at the industrial zones to set up their units. Saudis, Qataris, Emiratis and Kuwaitis have invested billions of dollars in Britain, United States, Germany and France. Pakistan can be a best destination for their capital if they are given facilities.
We have to create investment opportunities with tax concessions to attract not only Arab investors, but also the European and Chinese investors.
