Industries’energy needs to be met: President assures investors
BRUSSELS, Sept 13: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday assured foreign investors of fully meeting energy requirements of their industries in Pakistan on a sustained basis and invited Belgian investors to benefit from the country's liberal economic policies, skilled manpower, improved law and order and cheap labour, making it an ideal investment destination.
"We will guarantee gas, electricity to any investor in Pakistan," he said while responding to a question at a breakfast meeting with leading Belgian companies on the third day of his visit to Brussels.
The president shared with the business leaders ground realities in Pakistan and said their investment in Pakistan was fully protected.
"I believe Pakistan is the most misperceived country and suffers from poor perception, realities are different," he said while projecting Pakistan as a destination for profitable business ventures.
On the growing energy needs, President Musharraf referred to the phenomenal growth in economy that led to a sharp rise in demand and subsequently to a supply-demand gap.
But, he assured that government had strategised the country's energy requirements and exploring all opportunities to meet the demand. "We are looking at all resources of power generation from export of energy to local production through alternative resources," he added.
In this respect, he said Pakistan was holding talks with Iran for importing gas and was even looking at buying electricity from Kyrgyzstan.
President Musharraf also cleared any misperception about Pakistan, inviting the businessmen to come to Pakistan and see for themselves the ground realties. "Don't believe me, come and see for yourself."
He said there were 700 foreign companies operating in Pakistan for the last 40 years and they never had any problem. Nestle is setting up its biggest plant in a remote Kabirwala town that speaks of their confidence in Pakistan's economy.
"It was true that my perception about Pakistan was quite different because of media coverage, unfortunately, but now we have much clear view of what is going on in Pakistan," said Omer Baturalp of Puratos company dealing in food business.
"I foresee a sharp increase in trade and business relations between Pakistan and Belgium and the president's speech was very reassuring that it will certainly happen," said another businessmen Dirk Van Steerteghem of Flanders Investment and Trade.
President Musharraf gave a glimpse of how Pakistan's economy was performing, especially in the last four years during which it recorded seven per cent growth on average.
He said the GDP had doubled in four years and the debt-to-GDP ratio had been brought down from 101 per cent to 55 per cent, which was even lower from the benchmark of 60 per cent set by the European Union for their trade.
The president said the country's foreign exchange reserves--that could just meet two weeks imports in 1999--had now risen remarkably and were now enough to meet imports requirement of 8 months.
President Musharraf said the revenue collection had gone up by 250 per cent during the last five years that had enabled the government to make record allocation of Rs415 billion for the development programme.
Similarly, he said, the country's stock exchange was declared the best performing bourse in Asia and perhaps in the world that helped push up its international credit rating manifold.
He said the improved credit rating was reflected in the over-subscription of euro, dollar and Islamic bond--that Pakistan floated in the international market, showed growing confidence of foreign investors in the country's economy.
The president described agro-based, industry, IT, telecommunications, construction, food and food processing, textile as some of the sectors where Belgian investors can invest.
Pakistan, he said, was the fifth largest milk producers but lacked facilities for value addition. However, the government was now putting in place better collecting system.
In the services sector, the president cited the example of boom in the hotel industry and in Islamabad alone some four top hotels were being constructed.
In the telecom sector, he told the Belgian investors about the phenomenal growth in the use of mobile phones, up from just 600,000 three years ago to about 40 million. Tele-density--that was a mere 2.9 per cent, has increased to 20 per cent, he added.
In the manufacturing sector, the president said that growth in industrial sector was in the double digit. Giving an example of the growth, he said, car production has increased from 35,000 a year to 200,000 and that of motorcycles, from 85,000 to 700,000.Listing some of the incentives for the foreign investors, he said, Pakistan has a lower tariff regime--reduced from 120 per cent down to 25 per cent, low cost of raw material and foreign investors enjoy all the facilities as given to the local investors.Moreover, the president said export manufacturing was zero-rated, and profitability was high. Foreign companies getting profit between 20 to 60 per cent.
He also informed the Belgian businessmen about the government's efforts to improve quality of the manpower to cater to the needs of the foreign investors.
President Musharraf also highlighted Pakistan's geo-strategic location as an energy and trade corridor and said the country provided the inter-connectivity to all the regions.
He said Pakistan considered Belgium and the EU as an important country and an organisation of significant importance and expressed desire to increase economic ties with them.
The president noted special focus of Belgium in agro-based industry, steel and pharmaceutical and said the same were of great importance to Pakistan also. “There is a commonalty of interest,” he added.
He asked the Belgian companies, which were thinking to relocate their textile industries, to see Pakistan as an ideal place, which also had a strong textile sector.
The president urged the Belgian investors to benefit from Pakistan's liberal investment environment and added that their investment would also help the country in its fight against terrorism and extremism through poverty alleviation and job creation. —APP
