WASHINGTON: Pakistani officials told interested US investors on Thursday that Pakistan was an attractive destination for their investments with promises for lucrative returns.

In his address to the first Pakistan power sector privatisation roadshow in Washington, Privatisation Commission’s Chairman Mohammad Zubair said the country would have a GDP growth of over 5 per cent this year while the fiscal deficit would remain less than 4.3pc.

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Zubair, who is also a minister of state, told potential investors that Pakistan had foreign exchange reserves of more than $20 billion while inflation was below 5pc, lowest in 12 years.

In his speech on “Pakistan as an Investment Destination”, Mr Zubair explained that the country’s discount rate was the lowest in the last 40 years and it has been receiving record remittances of $1.44bn a month since 2013.

Pakistan also had a middle-class population of 70 million, the fourth largest in Asia or more than the total population of Britain, he said.

He acknowledged that Pakistan was the sixth most populous country in the world but 63pc of this population was under the age of 30. Pakistan also experienced the fastest urbanisation in the region in recent years. It was also one of the fastest growing capital markets in the world, he added.

The chairman pointed out that Pakistan was the fourth-largest global producer and the third-largest consumer of cotton, fourth-largest exporter of rice and seventh-largest producer of sugarcane.

He pointed out that the country had 116m mobile phone users, with a total teledensity of around 60pc.

Pakistan also had the eighth-largest reserves of shale oil and had one of the largest canal irrigation systems in the world, Mr Zubair said, adding that the country also had Rs185bn of coal reserves at Thar alone.

Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani, Pakistan’s envoy in Washington, told the audience that during the prime minister’s forthcoming visit to the United States the two sides would work out measures for enhancing trade and economic cooperation.

He said that energy was the government’s top priority and the government would like the US to invest in repair and up-gradation of electricity transmission system.

Mr Jilani pointed out that MSCI (formerly part of Morgan Stanley) announced in June 2015 that it will consider Pakistan in 2016 review for a potential reclassification to emerging markets, and that Japan External Trade Organisation has declared Pakistan as likely to be the second choicest place for FDI.

In June, Moody’s upgraded Pakistan’s bond ratings to B3 with a stable outlook. In March, it raised Pakistan’s foreign bonds ratings from stable to positive.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2015

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