ISLAMABAD – Since its inception, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)government has been confronting a number of inherited economic challengeshead-on.
For a long term solution of the economic woes, the incumbent governmentintroduced a new economic regime to incentivize both local as well asforeign investors with conducive environment through ease of doing businessplans.
To lure foreign investors, Prime Minister Imran Khan has undertaken manyvisits to China, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United ArabEmirates, Turkey, Qatar and Malaysia, where he interacted with theirbusiness community to apprise them about business opportunities in Pakistan.
Resultantly international investors, due to business-friendly policies, areinclining towards Pakistan and showing keen interest in various economicsectors.
The recent three-day official visit of Malaysian Prime Minister Dr MahathirMohammad to Pakistan is expected to bring around $900 million investment invarious sectors such as telecommunication, technology, automobiles andHalal foods.
A Malaysian automotive company Proton Holdings is going to set up a carassembly plant in Karachi in collaboration with the Pakistani firm Al-HajAutomotive.
A symbolic ground-breaking of the car assembly plant was also performed bythe two chief executives of brotherly countries during Pak-MalaysiaInvestment Roundtable conference, held in Islamabad from March 21 to 23.
Before his departure to Malaysia, Dr Mahathir Mohammad was also briefedabout the JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft – jointly developed by China andPakistan – by Prime Minister Imran Khan himself.
Moreover, two Chinese business giants – XCMG and HSS Group – have issued aletter of intent for investing $2 billion in housing and manufacturingsectors.
The letter of intent follows a meeting of a delegation led by XCMG GlobalSales President Dr Hanson Liu with Prime Minister Imran Khqan in Islamabadon March 6.
Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, during his two-day official visitto Islamabad last month, signed a couple of agreements worth $20 billion inpetrochemical, mining, energy and agriculture sectors.
“This is just the beginning,” the Saudi Prince said and expressed the hopethat Pakistan would be one of the largest regional economies by 2030.
Like the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project, Balochistan is beingprovided the lion’s share in this investment too.
The KSA is collaborating to set up an oil refinery at Gwadar Port with anestimated cost of $10 billion which is exactly half of its total investmentin Pakistan.
This generous Saudi initiative would help improve socioeconomic conditionof the province, besides removing the sense of deprivation among itseducated youth by creating a lot of white-collar and blue-collar jobopportunities.
In spite of all, the upcoming expected visit of Turkish President RecepTayyip Erdogan’s to Pakistan will prove to be historic one with a number ofinvestment plans.
According to Turkish Ambassador to Pakistan Muftafa Ihsan, the currenttrade volume between the two countries is $700 million, which can rise upto $10 billion.
Keeping in view its geostrategic location’s significance, the entire worldis eyeing on Pakistan to grab business opportunities under the newincentivized economic regime.
These are facts and figures which tell the PTI government’s success storywithin a short span of time.
Pakistan is coming out of the economic crunch and entering a new economicphase of development and prosperity under the dynamic leadership of PrimeMinister Imran Khan.
The local business community seems to be satisfied with the initiativestaken by the government for the economic revival as evident from theongoing economic activities in the country. Their businesses are expectedto get an unprecedented boost through joint ventures with foreigncompanies, which will resultantly stabilize the national economy.
Despite severe criticism from opposition leadership, Prime Minister ImranKhan, being a sportsman who believes in striving to win a cricket matchtill the last ball, is moving ahead and making all-out efforts to makePakistan a developed country as per the vision of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad AliJinnah and the dream of great poet and philosopher Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal.
Soon after assuming the office, the prime minster sensed the gravity of thecountry’s economic condition and for its immediate redressal, he soughtfinancial aid from the friendly countries in cash to ease balance ofpayment issue and supply of oil on deferred payment basis, before knockingthe door of International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid burdening the masseswith harsh conditions set by the international lender.
It is, however, compulsion for the incumbent government as the PakistanPeoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N), whoremained in power for the last ten years, left the economy in a shambles.
These so-called experienced and politically matured parties were aliens tobusiness-oriented policies as their focus was on the commission-orientedprojects to fill their personal coffers.
The PTI government has to pay the cost in servicing the debt, which rose to$30 billion from $6 billion in the last decade, while the masses areburdened with inflation, especially high prices of daily use commodities.
It was height of apathy on the part of both the PPP and PML-N governmentsthat instead of adopting corrective measures to put the economy on righttrack, they borrowed huge loans from the IMF and other internationallenders just to run the state affairs smoothly and repay the installmentsof existing debts.
According to Prime Minister Imran Khan, the government was paying Rs 6billion per day interest on the foreign debts.
The high profile foreign dignitaries’ visits to Pakistan, either explicitlyor implicitly, is a shut-up call to those who were pointing finger at PrimeMinister Imran Khan’s foreign tours.
The leadership of both the PPP and the PML-N, while in power, preferred todevelop personal relations with other heads of the state for their ownvested interests instead of the country-to- country and people-to-peoplecontacts.
Taking full advantage of their positions, they built their own castles, setup business empires and laundered billions of rupees in bank accountsabroad at the cost of national kitty.
On the contrary, the PTI government has adopted policies aimed at boostingthe country’s economy from the scratch, besides launching programmes forthe welfare of downtrodden segments of the society.
Like the European Renaissance, the tenure of incumbent government willprove to be renaissance period for Pakistan as it is making unwaveringefforts to bring socioeconomic reforms at the grassroots level.
It is also streamlining the system in which the rich used to get richer andthe poor poorer and the vessel of the state is driven between the Scyllaand Charybdis of anarchy and despotism.
Percy Bysshe Shelley discusses this aphorism in these words, “To him thathath, more shall be given; and from him that hath not, the little that hehath shall be taken away.”