ISLAMABAD – The government is trying to restructure the Board of Investment (BOI) and is planning to bring the private sector in the organisation, hence eliminating the bureaucrats working for the promotion of investments in the country, said BOI Chairman Saleem H Mandviwalla. “The BOI cannot be run as a conventional bureaucratic government organisation anymore”, he said in an interview. “We are also trying to create special economic zones in Pakistan and incentives would be given to industrial investors, who will come to this zone for investment”, the chairman stated. He added that the government would create industrial zones in Pakistan, in addition to provision of incentives at different locations. This would reduce the cost of doing business in those zones.
He advised the government to de-regulate power sector of the country, as it had done for the telecom sector. “Lets allow everyone to generate their own power and sell to anyone they like” he said. He further said that flood water was a resource, which has been wasted. It could have provided power for the next five years. The power sector must be de-regulated to bring about a revolution in this sector.
Regarding investment policies of the government, he said, government polices are very liberal and “there is no defect in our policies”. “We register companies on fast track basis and, in terms of the registration process, we are better than China and India. We are ranked 85th out of around 180 countries in doing business”, he remarked.
He said that policies of the Indian government are difficult and time consuming for investors, looking to enter the Indian market. “We have created the local board of investment in Punjab and Sindh and are now moving towards Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan in this regard”, he pointed. “Though, foreign investment is less these days but we are still better than other countries”, he remarked. The BOI chairman maintained that agriculture is the biggest sector. He grieved that agriculture was unexplored or had not been looked at by real investors. He said that it has a vast area with a number of fields and businesses, which can attract massive investments.
For instance, Pakistan is the largest producer of milk and 80 of our milk is sold loose”, he remarked – adding that 80 percent requires investment”. Saleem H Mandviwalla further said that “We also need huge investments in storage and warehousing. We still store our raw materials in open storage places”, he asserted. He added that milk is now stored in silos around the world, which maintains a certain temperature and moisture for products. Similarly, he said, Pakistan needs investments in exploration of energy. He also called for exploitation of alternative energy resources to meet the growing energy requirement.
Mandviwalla looks to eliminate bureaucratic culture from BOI
