ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said that the economy needs to be delinked from politics, and should have a clear economic roadmap.

“All political parties should have a joint ownership and we should have a medium-term macro-economic framework on which we should work for the best national interest,” Ishaq Dar said while speaking at the concluding session of ‘Pakistan Investment Conference’ on Thursday.

Dar was confident that once energy crisis and extremism are overcome, gross domestic product growth rate would accelerate rapidly.

The finance minister said that the government was taking concrete measures for protection of investment. Pakistan, he said, is going to be the second choice for foreign direct investment and it will be the 18th largest economy of the world by 2050.

He, however, said the country has potential to achieve the target in half time.

Dar, who returned to Islamabad on Thursday after concluding talks with IMF in Dubai, said a number of countries were contacting the government to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Some Gulf countries have also shown interest, but he made it clear that Pakistan would prefer expansion in the volume of investment and not the replacement of projects.

He made it clear that no country would be allowed to join such projects which China has already identified.

The finance minister asked the business leaders to make proposals on consolidation of federal and provincial taxes to ease the doing business in Pakistan.

He said there are a dozen of areas which needed to be simplified, but asked the Board of Investment and business leaders that if they are able to simplify at least two procedures, there will be a massive improvement and the rating which slipped from 136 to 138 this year, would improve to 100.

About energy crisis, he said 10,600MW would be added to the system by the end of March 2018, helping the government overcome loadshedding and also add surplus power for the industry.

The government has already ended loadshedding for industrial and textile sectors, but was managing it for non-industrial sector.

BoI Chairman Dr Miftah Ismail announced that General Electric of the US will invest $50 million for setting up a training centre in Pakistan to reduce line losses.

Similarly, Shell will invest in the sale of LNG in Pakistan. He disclosed that another Japanese car manufacturing company would be setting up a plant in the country.

Information Minister Senator Parvez Rashid said that the interest of investors in Pakistan was gradually increasing and the country was emerging as an investment-friendly state on the world map.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2015

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