KARACHI, Jan 31: Privatization and Investment Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has said that Pakistan is a safe and profitable destination for foreign investment because the country offers liberal investment policy as compared to other neighbouring countries.

"All manufacturing sectors in Pakistan are open for investment where foreigners can hold 100 per cent equity and no government permissions are required," he told participants at the opening session of a two-day seminar of ECO-member states on "Trade and investment information networking" here on Monday.

The Board of Investment has organized the seminar. "A number of incentives and measures are in place for promoting business activity in Pakistan. These include the network of export processing zones and industrial estates, the concession in customs duty on import of plant and machinery, free remittance of capital, dividends, royalty, technical and franchise fee," he pointed out.

"Let me assure you that Pakistan's investment policy provides equal treatment to both foreign and domestic investors," Dr Hafeez Shaikh said, adding that Pakistan had tremendous potential and unique opportunities in almost every sector, especially in power, oil and gas, SMEs, mining and minerals, infrastructure, construction, agriculture, agro-based industries, food and fruit processing, packaging, tourism, engineering goods, IT, telecom, textile, etc.

Dr Hafeez said the main objective of the ECO was the expansion of mutual trade and promotion of conditions for sustained economic growth. This objective can better be achieved by the trade and investment networking of the ECO region, he noted.

"The establishment of trade and investment network in this region will facilitate the exchange of information on intra-regional trade, technology, human resource, market and investment opportunities, which will result in the expansion of economic activity in the region," he said.

The minister said: "Investment relations between private sectors of Pakistan and ECO countries are far behind the existing potential. This is evident from the fact that FDI inflows from the ECO region to Pakistan were merely $0.437 million during the last two years - 2002-04. This investment was mainly from Turkey and Iran, as currently 12 Turkish and Iranian companies are working in Pakistan."-APP