KARACHI, Jan 10: After a lapse of 42 years, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) will hold its second regional foreign direct investment (FDI) conference in Pakistan.

The ICC Asia Regional FDI conference, planned for February 17-18, 2002 in Karachi, will be hosted by the Pakistan National Committee (PNC) of ICC and, according to its organizers, 300-350 delegates, including 60-70 foreigners are expected to participate.

“It is an opportune moment to hold an investment conference,” says Tariq M. Ragoonwala, Chairman of local ICC body as, he puts it, Pakistan is on the emerging crossroad for trade and investment.

“South West Asia has been an important hub for world trade,” says Richard D. McCormick, President, Paris-based ICC, adding the Karachi conference will explore how to advance trade and investment by “opening new markets, forging new partnerships and attracting capital investment amidst a challenging world economy”.

A small group of founding fathers of ICC had called themselves “merchants of peace”. The objective behind holding this conference is to stabilize business environment and increase the pace of economic development in the region, says PNC.

The conference would help identify regional economic synergies and propose specific policy measures for enhanced regional economic activity.

With the international community on board and external sector of the economy strengthened by liberal assistance and debt relief and despite the country’s current focus on security, some cautious optimism prevails that it is the right time to make a bid for direct foreign investment. Tariq, however, feels that international commercial laws and business practices will have to be adopted by Pakistan to facilitate foreign direct investment.

The conference would present a reform agenda that would make the country eligible for massive injection of private capital, say the organizers.

In all, 127 countries have enforced the 1958 New York Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Pakistan has signed the convention but not ratified it or brought into force, says Mahomed Jaffer of Orr, Dignam and Co.

The present government is working on a draft law to adopt New York Convention that would make the international arbitration binding on the parties to the dispute. And Tariq says that local panels would then be set up by the Paris-based ICC to decide arbitration cases.

In 1959, Tariq’s father M. Rangoonwala, a former president of the Paris-based ICC with local affiliates in 124 countries and PNC founder, organized CAFEA-ICC Investment Conference in Karachi. It preceded president Ayub’s development decade.

On the agenda of the two-day conference are such topics as “private sector participation in reconstruction of Afghanistan”, “potential of regional economic synergies”, “privatization, de-regulation and liberalization” and “arbitration: case studies. “These include a Hubco case by lawyer Hafiz Pirzada and a paper on case study on ICC arbitration under Pakistan laws by Nael Bunni, senior director, Bunni and Associates, consulting engineers, Ireland.

The speakers include Richard D. McCormick, ICC President; Maria Livanos Cattaui, ICC secretary general; Thomas J. Bata, Bata Foundation Canada; Dr. R.K. Pachauri, director-general, Tata Energy Research Institute; Dr. Gavin M. Graham, senior regional adviser Shell, Netherlands; Scott Bulter, CEO, Arabian Anti Piracy Alliance Dubai and Nazila Noebashari of Traf Co Ltd, Iran.

Among the local participants would be leading businessmen and lawyers, federal ministers for finance, privatization, petroleum, commerce, communications and law and senior government officials. The organizers have also invited President Pervez Musharraf to deliver the key note address.

The organizers expect that a Turkish delegation and a US team representing US OPIC, Eximbank and TDA, whose visit would coincide with the conference, would also attend the regional moot. The PNC is in touch with the US and Turkish diplomats.