ISLAMABAD: Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pakistan will prove to be a great opportunity for speeding up country’s economic development, as many investment agreements worth billions of dollars for Pakistan’s energy, infrastructures and other sectors will be signed.
This was stated by former Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) chairman Asim Zaffar, while talking to media. He appreciated the PML-N government’s foreign policy, and said that in order to make Chinese President’s visit meaningful, there was a dire need to attract huge Chinese investment in projects of connecting Karakoram Highway to Gwadar, rail route between Pakistan and China, and Pak-China Economic Corridor Project.
Asim Zaffar said that Pakistan did not need aid from China but investment in projects of infrastructural development that would not only usher in a new era of prosperity but also scale up Pakistan’s GDP growth rate up to 8 percent.
To a query, he said foreign funding and new investments by local investors had helped jack-up stock markets graph while the Chinese President’s visit would further raise points of stock markets in Pakistan.
However, Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) should keep a vigilant eye on market trends and formulate such rules and regulations, which ensured protection to the investments of the investors. The SECP, he said, should revive its previous ‘Badla System’ and formulate rules of this system keeping in view the modern age.
To another question, the former LSE chairman said halal meat demand worldwide was growing 20 percent every year and Pakistan’s annual halal meat export recorded at $300 million against over $500 billion global market.
He suggested that the government should launch livestock farming schemes and provide micro financing loans facility from bank to rural population, citing that it would help alleviate poverty from rural areas and also help increase country’s meat exports manifolds.
Asim Zaffar said that the LNG’s (Liquefied Natural Gas) import and the government’s efforts for increasing electricity generation through new projects would overcome power load-shedding. This would increase industrial growth and Pakistan’s exports volume as well, he added.
