May 10, 2002	Friday	Safar 26, 1423

KARACHI, May 9: The Pakistani business community was on Thursday counting the cost of a suicide bomb attack in this southern port city, fearing increasing terrorism would hit foreign investment and trade.

“The foreign business community is in a state of shock,” said Moin Fudda, president of the Overseas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which represents foreign companies operating in Pakistan.

Though the immediate withdrawal of foreign companies was not expected, attracting new business would be difficult, he said.

The bomb attack on a minibus outside the Sheraton Hotel here on Wednesday killed 11 French nationals and three Pakistanis.

“We used to invite our foreign partners to Pakistan and advised them to stay in the Sheraton Hotel as the safest place for them, but what would we advise them now?” Fudda asked.

The French killed in the blast were workers from the Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN), a French state-owned company involved in jointly building with Pakistan three Agosta 90B class submarines.

The company immediately recalled all its other expatriate employees from Pakistan.

Pakistani business leaders also complained about what they called the deficiencies of the security forces.

The businessmen believe recent positive signs that economic activity was picking up would be hard to sustain in the wake of the bomb blast.

“We might lose further our European market, especially in France, following the bomb blast, and it’s all because of the failure of the law enforcing agencies,” said Farrukh Hussain, a leading leather exporter.

France is a major importer of Pakistani leather goods.

“Our partners from France are apprehensive of the grave situation here and are not willing to visit here anymore,” Hussain said.—AFP