ISLAMABAD, May 25: Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Sunday that travel advisories issued by various Western countries for their nationals was hampering foreign investment in the country.

The minister urged foreign investors to ignore these advisories as Pakistan is a better choice for investments.

He said this at the agreement signing ceremony of a local private television channel with three foreign firms — British, American and Norwegian — for the import of $10 million equipment, which will enable this TV network to provide 40 channels and the fastest Internet services to the people.

The finance minister allayed the fears about security situation in the country, saying: “Pakistan is a peaceful country and its people are very

hospitable and warm hearted.” They would welcome foreign investors, he held out assurance.

The government is committed to provide conducive policies to attract foreign investments, he said and emphasised that in the globalized world, we have to deregulate, create space and give opportunities to private sector to move ahead.

He said that with the improving economy, lowering interest rates and increasing GDP, Pakistan offered tremendous opportunities to the domestic and foreign investors.

The country is now entering on the second generation of reforms in many areas with the successful implementation of structural reforms of the last three years, he said.

Mr Aziz said that one area of reforms was media, in which we were witnessing the results, with the creation of more job opportunities and advancement of technology, promoting economic activities.

He said the government had opened up the media to private sector, and it had gone through a massive transformation.

There were many sectors, including petroleum, financial and stock market, which he said were enjoying growth due to reforms.

The finance minister held out assurance that the government would come up with a right type of environment reforms and would remove red tapism.

He specially mentioned the investment of $2.5 billion by the textile sector in creating modern manufacturing technology to meet the WTO challenges.

Mr Aziz said that due to the fiscal space created through higher revenue, debt management, debt profiling and lower interest rate, the government would increase allocations to the annual development programme for next year to over Rs155 billion.