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| 16 April 2004 | Friday | 25 Safar 1425 |
US refuses to stop negative advisories
ISLAMABAD, April 15: The US government has refused to stop issuing negative travel advisories for its citizens unless Pakistan improves the law and order situation and removes political instability in the country.
Informed sources told Dawn here on Thursday that the Bush administration had also asked the government to effectively enforce the intellectual property rights before expecting a sizable American investment in Pakistan.
There has been quite a bit of interaction recently between senior Pakistani officials and the US authorities in which issues concerning low American investment came up for discussion.
Sources said Pakistan was advised by the US officials to ensure rule of law so that American citizens could travel to Pakistan without any fear or hesitation. "They (Americans) have genuine concerns which need to be adequately addressed to expect new American investment in our part of the world," said an official who recently held a number of meetings with the US officials both in Islamabad and Washington.
He said the Bush administration often cited examples that pirated books and CDs were glutted in the Pakistani markets but no action had been taken against the culprits.
The official said the Foreign Office's request to the US government to issue "positive travel advisories for its citizens" had not been accepted. "We were told to address issues concerning law and order, political instability, rule of law and the enforcement of the intellectual property rights," he said.
Another official source, when contacted, said that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was not increasing and continued to be less than the level achieved during the previous years due to "image problem".
"We had received a maximum $1.1 billion FDI in 1995-96 due to the arrival of Independent Power Producers (IPP)," he said, adding that in subsequent years, the flow of foreign investment continued to go down due to various reasons, including the worsening law and order situation.
He said Pakistan attracted about $600 million foreign investment last year that also included $176 million which came in the wake of the privatization of the United Bank Limited (UBL).
"And India attracted over $10 billion foreign investment last year," the official said, adding that bureaucratic controls were also discouraging foreign investment.
He regretted that those who come here for investment often later prefer to go to Middle East because of not receiving timely infrastructure facilities. Also, tariffs for seeking various utilities specially that of electricity was still high compared to other countries of the region.
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