Foreign investment of billions soon: PM

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar Friday said the nation would soon hear good news from the platform of Special Investment Facilitation Center (SIFC) in terms of billions of dollars of foreign investment in the country.

“You will hear good news in the next couple of weeks, as we are going to sign many MoUs of billions of dollars investment with various countries from the platform of SIFC,” he said while speaking at a special session of ‘Breakfast with Jang’ organized by the Jang Media Group here.

British High Commissioner Jane Marriot, Japanese Ambassador Mitsohiro, Polish ambassador Maciej Pisarski, ambassador of Vietnam Nguyen Tien Phong, ambassador of Turkmenistan Atadjan Movlamov, Ambassador of Azerbaijan Khazar Farhadov, and Deputy Ambassador of France Guillaume DABOUIS attended the breakfast and interacted with the prime minister on foreign relations. Leading businessmen, Federal Secretary Information Shahera Shahid, ex-information secretaries including Ashfaq Gondal, Rashid Chaudhry and Shafqat Jalil, Principal Information Officer (PIO) Dr. Tariq Khan, Press Secretary to the Prime Minister Shahzad Khan and others were also present.

Sarmad Ali of Jang Media Group also attended the event.

The prime minister shared his views on ‘Prospects for Better Pakistan’, covering political, economic and diplomatic priorities of the caretakers for the next two and a half months.

“We are on track to sign bilateral agreements with many countries and you will hear good news may be in a week,” he said.

Kakar said the SIFC was vigorously working on attracting local and foreign investment in various fields including minerals sector, agriculture and IT.

He told a questioner that since the SIFC was also represented by the military; therefore, there was no issue of sustainability of working of the Council.

“The military will ensure sustainability in the working of the SIFC and its decisions,” he said.

He said local investors and businessmen were also welcomed on the SIFC and a special invitation could be sent to them.

The prime minister said the government was also focusing on the state owned entities (SOEs) like the PIA, Pakistan Steel Mills and Electricity Distribution Companies.

“This is one of our priorities and some outcome is expected in mid of January,” Kakar said.

The caretaker premier pointed out that he believed there should be 1,000 billionaires in the country for creation of wealth.

“It is not the government’s job to do business and all it wants is payment of tax from these wealthy people,” he said.

He said another priority of the caretaker setup was to bring about taxation reforms and broaden the tax net.

“We believe in bringing the untaxed sectors like the agriculture sector into the tax net whether there is a fix or variable rate,” he added.

Talking about the economic and investment potential of the country, he said Pakistan, population-wise one of big countries, was not only rich in natural resources but also provided connectivity among the regional countries.

To a question, he said provision of basic facilities in far-flung and rural areas largely depended on the local government system but on one in the country wanted this system.

“Unfortunately, the office of the chief minister in every province has become the center of power and everybody runs towards it,” he said.

He said the government was working on having skilled and semi-skilled workers in the country adding that human resource development and upgradation of the medical sector was also their priority.

The prime minister said the electronic and print were functioning according to the regulations but the social and digital media were beyond control and it was up to the parliament to go ahead with legislation to regulate them.

Kakar said there was no political crisis in the country and assured that power to the next government would be transferred peacefully.

However, he said the elected governments would have to justify their election through a better service delivery.