Time to quit begging for aid, lets find investors!

That foreign direct investment continues to slide in Pakistan isn news as such. Even if Pakistans fragile economic and security environment wasn a strong repellent for global investors, FDI would have likely tapered off anyways.
Thats because the two most favoured FDI recipient sectors of the economy, financial businesses and telecom, have now been saturated with little room to absorb further inflows, without undergoing a healthy expansion or consolidation phase.
The slowdown in economies worldwide, especially US, EU, and the UAE, was also enough to ease the flow of foreign investment in Pakistan, notwithstanding the risks.
But that doesn mean the government should sit like a helpless duck, blaming it all on fate and the terrorists whimsical desire to blow things up any time and place. Its time for politicians to go out and do some shrewd politicking in the international arena.
If Friends don have enough trust to dole out Pakistan some loans or aid, then at least the government should try concentrating her time and energies on attracting foreign investments by playing the best diplomatic card.
Its good that Prime Minister Gilani has taken an initiative to find a way out of the energy conundrum by holding an all-Pakistan energy summit in Islamabad, following which the cabinet members will hopefully sell the energy austerity plans in their respective constituencies.
Once done, the next move should be the holding of a grand international investor conference, where two themes should be central, a) finding investors from new sources b) attracting energy specific investments.
In this context, investors from China, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark and other leaders in alternative energy should specifically be wooed, keeping in mind the potential of wind, solar and unconventional sources of energy production in the country.
Unless the government is successful in attracting foreign investments in the energy sector, in absence of the promised aid, the economy will likely remain entangled in a vicious cycle, with nowhere to go.