China’s largest investment bank eager to enter Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: A leading Chinese investment bank on Tuesday said it was resolved to exploit the existing investment opportunities in Pakistan by expanding its business in the country as it sees it to be more preferable than United Kingdom.

“China enjoys warm relations with Pakistan especially in the backdrop of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), where potential for investment seems more promising,” said Zhenyi Tang, chairman Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (CLSA), at a meeting with Daniyal Aziz, the federal minister for privatisation, in the federal capital.

Tang said the CLSA, a subsidiary CITIC Securities, China's largest full-service investment bank, could help the local investors for investing in local capital market or Hong Kong to which they have an easy access.

Thanking the Chinese company for showing such a keen interest in Pakistan, the privatisation minister apprised the delegates about the opportunities in different sectors of national economy including energy, infrastructure, transportation, communication, agriculture, capital and security markets, finance, and banking.

“Pakistan is a fast growing economy and was striving to make the SOEs more efficient. We have identified another 14 entities for privatisation in energy sector and the CLSA can explore investment opportunities there,” Aziz said.

Moving ahead, the minister informed the Chinese delegation that during the recent past Pakistan had enhanced its electricity generation capacity from 15,000 to 26,000 megawatts in order to fulfil domestic energy requirements.