This was stated by the Minister for Privatization and Investment Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh while talking to newsmen at the inaugural session of a workshop on “Administrative Barriers to Investment in Pakistan” here on Wednesday.
Board of Investment and Foreign Investment Advisory Services (FIAS) of IMF and the World Bank have jointly organized the workshop.
“We will try to privatize these entities by December 31,” the minister said.
Replying to a question, he said Hassan Associates had informally indicated that they were ready to match the price quoted by Saudi group Kanooz Al-Watan.
He said Etisalat will deposit the rest of the bid amount of PTCL by end of September.
Earlier, speaking at the inaugural session of the workshop, he said that the government was sincere in removing administrative barriers in the way of investment.
He said the government had introduced economic reforms, done proper marketing of Pakistan and provided improved facilities to business to promote investment in the country.
However, the administrative barriers have hindered the inflow of local and foreign investment in the country. This issue needed to be addressed and this was the reason why they had sought the help of FIAS, he added.
Dr Hafeez said FIAS would gather inputs from local and foreign businessmen in the country about problems they were facing while doing business in Pakistan. FIAS would prepare report on the basis of the feedback and recommend suggestions to the government for their removal and line of action.
“We will highlight these issues and submit FIAS recommendations to the Economic Coordination Committee as well as the Federal Cabinet for approval and implementation to make things better for investors,” he said.
The minister said these recommendations would also be sent to provincial and local governments for implementation.
He said first workshop was held in Islamabad, but the government wanted to get the feedback from businessmen in Karachi which was the centre of economic and commercial activities.
“We want your open views on the administrative barriers to investment and also your suggestions,” he noted.
He said Pakistan had never been a popular destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) and the investment inflow was possible only through government-supported funding in 60s, 80s and in the 21st century.
“It has nothing to do with the governments, location, policies or image of the country. It is something else. It is the general structure of administration, which remained the same despite the changes in the governments in the past,” he observed.
Dr Hafeez was of the view that the problem was not at the top, but was just below the top. “This has to be removed and this is the area where we need the expertise of FIAS in its report,” he noted.
He said the government had been working to improve infrastructure facilities including the provision of gas, electricity, water and telecommunication for investors.
“We had slept long and now needs to take comprehensive measures to further improve infrastructure and make it easy for private sector to do business,” he noted.
He said that successful privatization had enabled the government to allocate more funds for public sector projects, created fiscal space for allocations and accelerated private sector investment activities.
James Crittle and Fatima Shah of FIAS in their presentation talked about the activities of FIAS, saying that it has undertaken 500 projects in 110 member countries in the last 16 years.—APP