Islamabad: Chairman of National Business Group of FPCCI, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Wednesday said foreign investors are finding new investment destinations therefore Pakistan should try to lure them.
Foreign investors are losing interest in Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and China due to increased wages and some other problems and they are exploring new venues, he said.Mian Zahid Hussain said that Pakistan can get foreign investment if political stability is ensured, investment policies are improved and consistency in the policies is guaranteed.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that exports, imports, remittances and the exchange rate is satisfactory but foreign direct investment (FDI) is falling.
FDI has been reduced by 35 percent from July to March while FDI in March was 40 percent short of the FDI in the corresponding month, he said, adding that political instability will further dent the FDI.He said that many companies have closed their business in Pakistan while the companies that invested billions in the LNG project are tired of the negative tactics of the state-run companies.
The business leader said that Pakistan has faced energy scarcity and security issues for a long time which have been resolved but the FDI is not picking up which means that foreign investors are still not inclined to prefer Pakistan over other countries.Similarly, many packages were announced for foreign investors but to no avail and the country remained on 108th position in FDI.
Many countries have attracted foreign investment equalling three percent of their GDP but it has never reached one percent of the GDP in Pakistan which may go down further.