The landmark achievement of over $1 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) has been successfully realised. The FDI figures for the period July 2004 to May 4, 2005 stood at $1,029.7 billion as compared to $902.8 million for the corresponding period of the previous year showing an increase of 15 percent.
President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz at a meeting here on Wednesday expressed satisfaction that the FDI in the country had crossed $1 billion mark during the first 11 months of 200-4-05.
The major sectors, which attracted sizeable FDI during this period, are financial business ($214.1 million), oil & gas ($189.6 million), communications ($171.7 million), power generation ($67.4 million), and chemicals ($40.5 million).
The USA retained the lead position in the list of top investing countries with 24.7 percent share. The share of other major investing countries comes to UK 15.9 percent, Switzerland 13.2 percent, UAE 7.5 percent, Japan 4.0 percent, Netherlands 3.4 percent and others 31.3 percent.
In the previous year (2003-04) the $1 billion mark was missed only by 50 million dollars. This year the mark has been successfully crossed with one month still to go. The substantial increase in FDI is an indicator of the investors' confidence and change of perception about Pakistan at the international level.
All this has been possible because of the consistent liberal policies of the government towards creating investor-friendly climate, investor facilitation; provision of level playing field and good governance.
The increased FDI is going to have a positive impact on overall growth, poverty alleviation and creation of more jobs.-PR