LAHORE: Additional Secretary of Board of Investment Ambreen Iftikhar in a presentation has said that in 2021, $175 billion were invested in South Asia, out of which only 2 billion dollars were invested in Pakistan.

Keeping this in mind, the ‘Invest Pakistan’ initiative is being launched. This is a step in which we will first develop a national framework for investment.

She was speaking at Invest Pakistan Concept Launch Event at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry. LCCI President Kashif Anwar, DG Board of Investment Zulfiqar Ali and Director Board of Investment Adnan Munir Rajput also spoke on the occasion, while executive committee members were also present.

The Additional Secretary said that the process through which BOI will encourage investors to invest in Pakistan, will be based on investor targeting.

She said that the national framework will not only notify the investment but will also help to operationalize it.

This framework will facilitate investors by identifying them and realizing them regarding investment opportunities.

She said that apart from this, at this time we are taking the budget proposals in a different way. Because of the IMF conditions, we have suggested that these conditions should be shared with the private sector so that they know which policies cannot be changed and which policies have scope. Under this new process, the suggestions of the business community will be brought into the finance bill so that they can be implemented easily.

LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that Lahore Chamber has always emphasized on making the rules & regulations simple and business-friendly so that the business climate in the country can be improved and all possible facilitation for the investors. This will definitely help in promoting ease of doing business.

The LCCI President said it is almost impossible to increase investment without reducing the cost of doing business. Our industries are facing problems like policy rate which has reached 17% and high energy cost due to which the production cost has increased a lot.

The economic conditions require that the government should give first priority to import substitution and give second priority to increasing exports to the desired extent, which we think can be possible only with industrialization and localization.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023