ISLAMABAD – The Board of Investment (BOI) Chairman Saleem Mindiviwalla has said that Pakistan’s investment policies are amicable and better than neighbouring countries including India. “Our policies are liberal and perfect but the issue is their implementation. We register companies on fast track basis”, Saleem Mindiviwalla said in an interview.
He stated that the primary purpose of the BOI was to raise investment related matters, not dealt conventionally, in the board. He added that the board looked to resolve such issues and was in coordination with the Prime Minister’s office. However, he said that other issues, not related to investment, are also addressed.
These could be law and order problems, infrastructure problems, electricity and other utilities issues. This, he remarked, was essential in order to facilitate investors.
Highlighting the present situation of business and investment, he said that foreign investment in Pakistan was faced with a downward trend. Governments were positively intervening in businesses as a result of the overall slump in the world economy.
He observed that capitalist structure had failed worldwide and stressed on the need of a new structure.
He believed that procedures in the western countries were not feasible in Pakistan and urged on forming a structure according to our environment. Foreign investment in Pakistan is dwindling, but the chairman was still optimistic that Pakistan was better than other countries”. He praised Pakistan’s policies,
which he thought were extremely liberal. He criticised policies adopted by the Indian government, which he called as difficult. Regarding the criteria used by BOI for investors, he said that there were no limitations. There were investors with over Rs 100 crore who were being helped by BOI. He attributed a decline in the foreign investment in the last two years to global economic crises.
The countries that used to invest in Pakistan were no more investing in the country. There would be a shift in the next 10 years and the largest investors would not be the United States, Europe or the UAE. They would to be Asian countries. This shift was going to be world wide. Today the biggest foreign investor was China, he maintained.
