(May 13, 2023)
Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and President of All Karachi Industrial Alliance and former Provincial Minister Mian Zahid Hussain has said that doing business in Pakistan is almost impossible and like a gamble.
Only those foreign investors who have no other option venture into Pakistan due to a host of reasons.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the target of the majority of foreign investors is not technological development or exports but local consumption.
Talking to the business community, he said that only those foreign investors will invest in big projects who can get incredible returns like IPPs.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that investors who want to do business in Pakistan have to get dozens of permits and NOCs from the central government, provincial government and local government and they have to face unprecedented corruption at every step.
For this reason, foreign investment is eleven percent in Pakistan and if Chinese investors are not counted, it will remain only a few percent, while foreign investment in India is more than 29 percent and in China more than 35 percent of their GDP.
Foreign investors bring with them new ideas, new technology and modern processes while increasing the skills and productivity of the local population, but they are discouraged in every possible way resulting in skyrocketing debt.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baloch separatists, the lawyers’ movement and the recent civil disorder have caused irreparable damage to the country’s image and economy.
Investors are not feeling safe in the current toxic political environment, economic downfall and increasing instability. In this situation only senseless will consider Pakistan for investment.
