March 23, 2007	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1428

ISLAMABAD, March 22: The International Finance Corporation (IFC) will invest around $300 million in various projects in Pakistan during the current fiscal year. This was disclosed by Chief Executive Officer of IFC Lars Henrik Thunnell during a meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday at Prime Minister House.

An official announcement said that Mr Thunnell informed the premier that IFC was supporting the private sector in various sectors including banking, infrastructure, hotel industry and energy. He congratulated Pakistan on the progress the country had made in improving the investment climate during the last seven years.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that the government’s economic strategy had envisaged a greater role for the private sector in all sectors of the economy and IFC could play the role of a catalyst to enable private sector drive the economic development.

He said that as a result of consistency of economic policies and the provision of level-playing field, there was a substantial increase in investment leading to the generation of economic activities, jobs creation and better growth.

Mr Aziz said government welcomed local and foreign investors to take advantage of the improved investment climate in the country.

He said there were opportunities for local and foreign companies to set up asset management activities in Pakistan.

He said that Pakistan had vast potential in the fields of housing and real estate, power generation, oil and gas development, IT and telecom, agribusiness, tourism, coal mining and engineering sectors.