ISLAMABAD, Jan 9: The government has set up a 29-member high-powered committee to evaluate the full business potential in the public and private sector with a view to firm up a new corporate plan for attracting local and foreign investment in the country, a senior official told Dawn on Tuesday.

He said a decision had also been taken to introduce a comprehensive "Business Register" containing all relevant information and data about various businesses to be made available to foreign investors.

The GTZ - German Agency for technical cooperation, he said, has agreed to provide necessary financial and technical assistance to help set up Business Register that has formally been approved by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. He has also approved the composition of the committee.

Important sectors, like industry, manufacturing, energy and financial (banking and insurance), the official said, will be given preference in the compilation of data about their activities and business potential.

"This is being done for the first time in Pakistan so that one could, especially a foreigner, have some idea about various businesses in Pakistan", he said.

All the data comprehensively prepared about businesses in Pakistan, he said, would be comparable internationally. There can be no corporate plan without good statistics, he said, adding the committee would give its recommendations within next six months to the prime minister. It would be a census of manufacturing and other industries in Pakistan.

Responding to a question, he said initially, 6,500 units will be surveyed for which a questionnaire has also been prepared.

The committee would be headed by Secretary Statistics Division Asad Illahi and would include economic advisor to the ministry of finance, Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, additional secretary ministry of commerce Nasim Qurashi, Additional Secretary/Member Income Tax, CBR Salman Nabi, additional secretary/Member Sales Tax Ms Mussarat Jabeen, Commissioner Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Rashid Irfan Malik, joint secretary ministry of industries and production, Tariq Bajwa, director-general Board of Investment (BoI) Mohammad Jamil, economic advisor to the State Bank of Pakistan Riaz Riazuddin and Imtiaz Rastgar, chief executive officer, Engineering Development Board (EDB).

The representative of the provincial government in the committee included industries secretaries from Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Balochistan, and secretaries of labour departments of all the four provinces, director-general, Bureau of Statistics, planning and development departments of the provinces.

The members from the private sector are: Zubair Ahmad Malik, vice president federation of chamber of commerce and industry (FPCCI), Hussain Dawood, managing director Dawood Hercules Limited, Asad Omar, senior vice president Engro Chemicals Pakistan Limited, Syed Nabeel Hashmi, chief executive Thermosole Industries, Avais Mazhar Hussain of Angora Textile Limited, Bernd Struck, GTZ advisor to the federal Bureau of Statistics and deputy director general (FBS).