January 25, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa’ad 21, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: The government has finalized a $2-billion investment plan in the health, education and housing sectors for Pakistani nationals returning from the United States.

Official sources told Dawn here on Friday that Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali would be given a presentation early next month about the plan to help those Pakistanis who wanted to return home because of the registration crackdown there and the consequent harassment.

Sources said that over 80,000 Pakistanis in the US currently going through the registration process had indicated their desire to make substantial investment in Pakistan.

The proposed plan will also attract Pakistani doctors and physicians living in America to come home and invest in health-related activities.

The new plan seeks strong assurances from the prime minister to offer infrastructure facilities to the potential investors. “We can only work out plans but we cannot ensure infrastructure facilities for the investors,” said a source in the Board of Investment. Other requirements like land, power, gas, telephone and water will have to be offered by the ministries concerned if any real investment was to be attracted.

The sources said the prime minister would be requested during the briefing to use all his influence for procuring large tracts of barren and unutilized land belonging to the Pakistan Railways and the development authorities in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Peshawar and in Balochistan. The land will be offered to the new investors either free of cost or on nominal charges to help set up their factories.

The sources said senior Pakistani-American physicians who recently visited Pakistan and met President Gen Pervez Musharraf had reportedly pledged to bring what one source termed “billions of dollars” if they were offered inexpensive infrastructure facilities, specially land.