'West knows little about Pakistan's cultural, political and business outlook'

The honorary investment diplomats of Pakistan in Belgium, Karin Zoeter and Walter J Mortelmans want the West to drop its negligent attitude towards the terror-ravaged Pakistan and fearlessly explore the country of 180 million people with unending investment chances in mining, energy, education, logistics and information technology fields.
Both diplomats are Belgian: Karin Zoeter represents Pakistan as honorary consul in East-West Flanders; and Walter J Mortelmans in Antwerp. They say the West knows very little about the country and its investment, cultural, political and business outlook. Rather it is oblivious to shrug off its illusion and turn face to an investment-potential nation of the world.
In an exclusive interview with Business Recorder during the recent Expo Pakistan 2011 exhibition at Expo Centre, the visiting trade envoys called themselves "friends of Pakistan", saying that understanding the frontline country in war on terror needed one to take a different approach.
Karin said that people in the western countries were carrying a media-painted perception, whereas scenes of calmness in Pakistan's nearly all cities were depicting an opposite picture to their views. "When you are here it is ok and some areas of Karachi are very good," she observed.
But, she said, she was worried about deployment of herds of police personnel to escort foreigners during their stay in any city of Pakistan, adding that such security arrangements are appreciated by the foreign visitors, but the western people were not accustomed to such security protocol in their honour. Some visitors raised the question if such security arrangements would not on the contrary attract extra attention towards the foreign visitors.
Walter viewed Pakistan a different country, saying that its neighbours Afghanistan; it has Kashmir conflict with India; undergoing the influence of extremists, and Saudis and the US, which makes it cope with the unwanted challenges coming on all fronts from all directions.
He said that Pakistan, despite hardships, had grown its GDP to over 7 percent some few years back; resultantly, the consumers' purchasing power also was augmented. "It was a good thing and inspiring," he said. He said that Pakistan was suffering from energy shortage and therefore had big investment opportunities for global power generating companies. He said he carried a campaign to encourage the Belgian investors to pour their capital in this sector.
"Returns on investment in energy sector in Pakistan are very high. Labour is cheap and the government largely encourages foreign investors to spend money in this sector and allows them to open facilities here to provide jobs, too," Walter said. The consul said Pakistan was a safe country for investment and business, like any other country of the world. But the perception equally matters. He lauded the philosophy of the Founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, saying that he established Pakistan as a Muslim country with equal opportunities to all of its citizens, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion, language and ethnic backgrounds.
Karin said the western reluctance could also largely be attributed to some experiences of difference in culture with the Magreb (West) and Arab world, and unfortunately generalised their perception to all the non-Arab countries, which could be another reason for the no interest in Pakistan business.
"Taking perception of the Arab world, they may believe that geographically more eastern situated cultures will be more difficult to understand from a western point of view," she elaborated. Walter was of the confirmed view that if Pakistan had beautiful beaches, world standard resorts and hotels on its 1100 kilometre coastline from Iran coast in the west to India's maritime belt in the east, the global tourists would definitely spend their weekends here.
He said he was on his fourth visit to Pakistan, witnessing huge opportunities for business and investment, adding that he had met representatives of various sectors during his stays. He said Pakistan had investment chances in railways, education, health, road infrastructure, energy, IT, mining, besides offering off-shore oil and gas exploration opportunities in its long sea belt.
He wanted to brand Pakistan as a product for its important strategic location on the global map with traffic and trade transportation routes to Afghanistan, Iran, China, India, and Central Asia and also could be to the Middle East. The government now needs to do marketing for its brand name to lure the global investors in the fields, which still needed attention and capital to boost its economy, he added.
Walter denied that the disturbance in Pakistan was hindering landing of foreign capital, saying hat the global investors would have to take risk as they always ran after huge returns on their investments, which the country was largely offering. He said Pakistan was offering tax holidays facility, which no investors could find the opportunity anywhere in the world.
He said Pakistanis were largely getting educated in English language, which would also give it an edge to interact globally, unlike many other countries. He said Pakistan had surplus fresh water resources and its land varies from desert to mountains, which make it different and special in the world.
Regarding the EU ban on Pakistan's seafood, Karin said she was not aware of such trade restrictions. However, she made it clear that the Union had its specifications about traceability from catch, over maintenance of cold chain of the products, till the product ends on the customer's plate.
"Quality control is omnipresent in any given sector, but especially in food matters. Products accepted on the European market have to comply with a number of quality standards. Specialised labels have been developed to guarantee traceability and a controlled production process, with checks executed by officially recognised organisations," she elaborated.
Walter said that the Pakistan-Belgium Business Forum, together with Pakistan's Board of Investments (BoI) had planned to organise a conference on Pakistan in Brussels on April 25, 2012, and that he would take an active role in this event as an independent witness. He said that promotion and advertising campaigns in the newspapers are foreseen to make it known to people globally. "This demonstrates that the Government, together with all its departments and existing commercial network, is working hard to attract foreign investments," he added.