Lack of coordination keeping foreign investors away

Lack of co-ordination among government departments is keeping foreign investors away from bringing fresh investments in the country. Although the Investment Boards ie Board of Investment (BOI), Sindh Board of Investment (SBoI) and others are endeavouring hard to attract foreign investments in the country, restrictions imposed by the Interior Ministry on foreign investors to seek No Objection Certificate (NOC) prior to launching their projects is keeping the prospective investors at bay.
According to the instructions issued by the Interior Ministry to the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), the commission is now required to proceed with the registration of companies after obtaining prior NOC particularly in the cases of companies providing security services, foreign funded NGOs/organisations, NGOs involving foreigners and companies having Indian nationals.
It further said the decision was made in the light of prevailing law and order situation and added that the Ministry has made the requirement of NOC mandatory for commission to initiate registration process for all security companies, foreign funded organisations and companies involving foreigners.
When contacted, Raheel Ahmad, corporate consultant confirmed the said development, saying that the Interior Ministry had instructed SECP to obtain mandatory NOC before registration of foreign funded organisations/NGOs, companies and organisations/NGOs involving foreigners.
He said in addition to the above, the Ministry had also instructed the SECP that all cases other than registration relating to companies and changes may be sent to the Ministry for clearance before their acceptance of allotment/ transfer of shares to foreigners and/or appointment as directors or election of the company involving foreigners etc.
He regretted that this process is discouraging the foreign investments in Pakistan as the process of clearance is taking 3 to 4 months to register the company or returns. Moreover, he said the ministry was intentionally delaying the clearance of cases that causes discouraging foreigners to invest in Pakistan.
He said the authority concerned should define a timeline of 15 days to register the documents as the said development has increased the level of corruption and urged to take remedial measures to facilitate the companies in registration process as several companies involving foreigners were waiting for long to get NOC as per requirement.