September 10, 2006	Sunday	Sha'aban 16, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 9: The government has asked the United States to review its decision of issuing negative travel advisories for American investors and tourists wishing to visit Pakistan as the issue is hurting the image of the country.

A senior government official told Dawn on Saturday President Gen Pervez Musharraf, during his forthcoming visit to the United States, would again take up the issue with President George W. Bush and other senior US officials in a bid to get the negative travel advisory removed.

“In fact we have requested both the United States and United Kingdom to stop issuing their negative travel advisories for their citizens”, he said.

The official said new investors were particularly finding Pakistan unsafe and were taking seriously the issuance of negative travel advisories by the United States.

He said the new US investor preferred to meet its Pakistani counterpart in Dubai, London, Singapore and New York due to the image problem, instead of directly coming to Pakistan for any business venture.

A diplomatic source said they had raised their concerns and the US government had noted their concerns over the issue. He, however, said Pakistan needed to improve the security situation to attract foreign investment, including from the United States, because the travel advisories were not without valid reasons.

He said US companies had shown interest in investing in projects coming through the central Asia in Pakistan. He was of the view that public-private partnership could be developed between South Asia and Central Asia to benefit the whole region.

He said the government had been assured that despite the issuance of negative travel advisories, the United States would play the role of a catalyst to ensure all possible economic support was offered to Pakistan. And, he added, energy needs of Pakistan would be met, particularly through the Central Asian States which possessed tremendous energy resources.

He said long-term energy plans were being made to help Pakistan and the United States was spending $40 million to build a road between Tajikistan and Afghanistan to ultimately help Pakistan to import necessary energy from Central Asia.

Sources said President Gen Musharraf would also raise the issue of acquiring nuclear energy from the United States for civilian purposes to meet the country’s needs of 8,800mw of energy by 2030.

According to the sources, the US government was making efforts to develop linkages in the energy, communications and transport sectors between Pakistan and Central Asia.

They said the US had identified key areas to help Pakistan overcome its energy problems by offering increased financial and technical support to Pakistan “as part of the launching of a greater strategic economic dialogue between the two countries”.