KARACHI: Corruption, insecurity hurdles in investment
KARACHI, April 21: British High Commissioner Mark Lyall Grant said on Thursday said security and corruption of various types remained the main concerns for investors, hindering investments in Pakistan especially in Karachi, but despite this, there were great investment opportunities and new investment was coming here from British companies.
He was delivering a speech on “Britain-Pakistan relationship including economic and higher education” here at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) City Campus.
“Trade is increasing between the two countries and Pakistan doing export more in UK than any other country of the region. It has increased by 1.8 billion pounds in three months,” he told.
Mr Grant said Pakistan was not on track to achieve new Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as it was lacking infrastructure.
“By 2015, many countries of world will achieve these goals. For this, the UK has increased its development and investment support to Pakistan increasing its aid four times. About 236 million pound sterling have already been spent in Pakistan,” he told.
Mr Grant further informed that the UK was the largest investor in Pakistan as its 80 companies were active here.
He told that recently a cement factory had been established with the help of UK in Chakwal (Punjab).
“We are also trying for getting waived the anti-dumping duty on Pakistani bed Lenin and textile exports. The trade mission was suspended for three years in Pakistan, but after the visit of President Musharraf and his assurance to curtail terrorism from the country, now it has started again,” he said.
Mr Grant expressed satisfaction on behalf of his government over the policies of the present government especially to combat terrorism and extremism in Pakistan.
Talking about education sector, he said the UK government was willing to complement efforts of Pakistan in increasing female literacy.
He said education especially female literacy was a major challenge for Pakistan, as in NWFP especially in the tribal areas, female education was really lacking and government should pay attention towards the situation.
“We thought in NWFP, the MMA government will resist our work, but they are supporting us for spread of education there and we are working in that province,” he informed.
About student visa for the UK, he said his government had increased visas for Pakistani students and in 2004; about 500 visas were issued to students.
“UK provides scholarships to many students of undergraduate, postgraduate, Masters and PhD level studies. Many new subjects have also been developed in the UK. Education, especially primary level and female literacy were the most important and necessary for development of a country. Keeping this in view, the UK has focused on education sector in Pakistan.
Citing the example of the UK as a democratic country, he said there were people including two million Muslims belonging to different religions and ethnic groups living peacefully, adding the UK government funded Islamic schools and assisted 40,000 pilgrims every year.
“People to people contact are beneficial. Pakistanis often bring forced marriages and honour killings trends with them in the UK. Till to date, about 100 cases were tackled of such situations, of them 60 females were secured. To control this situation, we are considering formulating a Joint Judicial Working Group. For this, we are going to sign a treaty with the Government of Pakistan as sometimes the Pakistanis misuse visa and seek asylum,” he said.
Answering a question he said the UK always supported restoration of democracy in the world. 20 years ago, there were only 22 democratic countries, but this number had increased by 28 at present.
“We did not take action against Iraq for democracy, there were intelligence that it had weapons of mass destruction,” he argued.
He said the UK government strongly supported the peace talks between Pakistan and India.
Deputy High Commissioner Mr Hamish Daniel St Claire, Prof Danishmand and Dr M Nishat also spoke.—PPI
