ISLAMABAD – Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on Thursday discussed the bilateralinvestment opportunities and also prospects for new investment in differentpotential sectors.
Minister of State and Chairman Board of Investment (BOI) Pakistan, MuhammadAzfar Ahsan had a detailed meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Minister forInvestment, H.E. Mr Khalid Al-Falih in Tashkent, said as press releaseissued by BOI here.
CEO of National Companies Promotion Program (NCPP) ,Badr Al Badr, ChairmanACWA Power Mohammad Abunayyan and Saudi Ambassador in Uzbekistan were alsoa part of the meeting.
During the meeting, an insightful discussion about devising a long-termstrategy between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan was held in order to create anatmosphere of investment facilitation in both countries.
Both sides highlighted deep-rooted bilateral ties and cordial relationshipbetween the two countries.They underscored the need for increased collaboration and investment invarious sectors including agriculture, food processing, mining, renewableenergy, refinery, petrochemicals, Information Technology, etc. and vowed tostrengthen business and economic ties.
The Saudi Investment Minister expressed the need for greater mutualinvestments in different fields and proposed to create a joint team betweenBOI and National Companies Promotion Programme (NCPP) to finalizeinvestment projects in Pakistan.
Chairman BOI briefed the Saudi investor in detail about the investmentregime of Pakistan. He shared that Pakistan is taking measures to increaseboth savings and investment to augment the employment generating ability ofthe economy as well as to raise resource availability for investment.
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Falih was also apprised on report issued by Overseas Investors Chamber ofCommerce as Industry (OICCI) which illustrates that a vast majority ofinvestors in Pakistan are optimistic about the growth potential of Pakistanand ranks Pakistan better than 6 out of 10 regional countries in terms ofinvestment opportunities and growth.
Ahsan sensitized the Saudi Minister about measures taken by BOI to reducecompliance burden in the SME sector and briefed about the PakistanRegulatory Modernization Initiative (PRMI).He also mentioned the special incentives offered to investors in SpecialEconomic Zones (SEZs) with an overall objective to accomplish economic andindustrial development goals.
Saudi Arabia’s Investment Minister was highly appreciative of theinitiatives introduced by government of Pakistan to facilitate investmentin the country.He invited the BOI team to visit Saudi Arabia along with relevantstake-holders to market investment projects from public and private sectorand shared that he will soon visit Pakistan to provide an impetus tobilateral economic cooperation between the two countries.
It was agreed that shovel ready projects including Oil Refinery projectwill be shared with the Saudi side right away to kick-start these projectswhile the rest of the projects will be finalized soon.
