Only someone just waking up from a lengthy coma wouldn understand why net foreign investment in Pakistan fell by more than half to $1.2 billion in the first seven months of fiscal year 2009-10.
Those keeping tabs on trends with a watchful eye know well about the how and why of gradually easing interest of foreign businessmen in Pakistani market.
For those who haven , here is a quick one-liner wrap up: the countrys service sector has saturated for the medium term, whereas investments in the real sector appear too risky to commit heavy sums of money for the long term. This shouldn come too surprising.
After successfully making it to the 10th place in Foreign Policys Failed States Index in 2009, the country has just been ranked third on the Terrorism Risk Index (TRI) developed by Maplecroft - a global risk assessor - after Iraq and Afghanistan.
Knowing that TRI, which measures not only the risks of an attack but also the chances of mass casualties, has been developed specifically for companies to evaluate terrorism risks to their international assets, one shouldn expect steady inflows going forward as well.
Then of course is the case of the limping state of economy. Manufacturing is still struggling, with private borrowers largely on the sidelines. And if, profit repatriation numbers - down 28 percent in the first half - were to give a clue, things are, by and large, uneventful.
Officials might quickly point out that falling FDI is a worldwide phenomenon - citing the 39 percent drop in global FDI, as reported by UNCTAD last month. But that might be an unseemly comparison because how would then one explain the 56 percent FDI drop in Pakistan, vis-à-vis 35 percent decrease in inflows to developing countries in 2009.
People had invested more in countries like Indonesia ($5.1bn), Columbia ($8.6bn), Mexico ($13bn), and South Africa ($6.8bn) than they poured in Pakistan ($2.4bn) in calendar year 2009.
But if its any consolation, foreign flows to the countrys stock market were sharply positive - up some 181 percent year-on-year in the Jul-Jan period.
The question, though, is, how long will these inflows continue given that feeding tubes in the form of subsidized-liquidity in international market will likely be taken away soon, as and when governments across the world start removing stimulus packages one by one.
What will happen next is anybodys guess. But considering that all those trips to China and other forums such as the FoDP haven really yielded any concrete result so far, there is little hope.
The government, which seems more occupied in personal politics in the wake of what appears to be a collision course with the judiciary, might talk of its plans to attract expatriates - boasting the success (to-date) of PRI remittances scheme.
But should one really rely on those who don seem to have any confidence in the countrys equities? Shhhh! Keep your answer to yourselves.