KARACHI: The reaction of American industrialists for investment … in Pakistan was “good”, said Mr Ghulam Mohammad, Finance Minister of Pakistan, when he arrived in Karachi … at 10-45 on Sunday night [Oct 9]. Back home from a three-month official tour of the USA, the European Continent and Britain, Mr Ghulam Mohammad told Pressmen at the [airport] that he felt he had completed his mission abroad successfully.

Asked whether Pakistan had become a member of the International Monetary Fund, [he] said that Pakistan’s application for membership was still “before the Board of Governors” of the Fund. His visit to the USA, Mr Ghulam Mohammad added, had something to do with the [IMF] “business”. He would not “answer” … whether Pakistan had sought a loan from the World Bank.

He had visited the USA to make personal contacts with private and official capital there, [he said]… . While in Scandinavia, he had studied the modern agricultural methods of that country which could have an “important bearing on the economy of Pakistan, which was based on agriculture,” the Finance Minister added.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2024