KARACHI, Jan 22: A three-hour long business dialogue between visiting 69 Japanese businessmen and a large number of Pakistani business leaders on Monday decided to set up a study group to address the double taxation issue, establishment of clusters, suggestions on elimination of under-invoicing, mis-declaration and smuggling and explore signing of bilateral Free Trade Agreement.
At a press briefing late in the afternoon, the leaders of Pakistan and Japan business teams expressed their commitment to enhance their investment and technical cooperation.
Leaders of the Pakistan-Japan Business Forum and the Japan-Pakistan Business Cooperation Committee are going to Islamabad to meet Prime Minister Shautkat Aziz and the Commerce Minister Humayun Khan to discuss their issues with the government.
“An official team will go to Japan next month to discuss avoidance of double taxation,” Mr Abdul Kader Jaffer told journalists later in the briefing. He said the Monday dialogue was the fourth in sequence since 2004 in which the participants explored possibility of expansion of Japanese investment from automobile to other areas.
Energy sector, he said, is the other area where the dialogue focussed for Japanese investment. He identified coal based power projects and hydel power as the potential areas for attracting investment.
The dialogue participants also emphasised on need for more technical training, more investment in physical infrastructure and utilising Pakistan’s manpower and the country’s strategic location to export to Africa, Middle East and CIS countries.
“A 2030 Vision is being developed that projects to raise industry’s share in the GDP to 30 per cent from 17.9 per cent in 2005,” Jaffer said and pointed out that per capita income in Pakistan was expected to go up to $3,000.
He said that automobile production was set to rise to half a million units a year from existing 220,000 units a year.
Increasing number of motor cars would also warrant setting up of equipment and spare parts manufacturing facility for which Japanese investment was being sought.
Dr Ishrat Husain, former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, in his paper informed that foreign investors and investment had been enjoying a great privileges status in Pakistan as these were not touched even during late Bhutto’s nationalisation drive. Later, the successive governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif followed, by and large, the same economic policies which had been refined and fine tuned by the present government.
He said the country’s economy had come a long way to acquire such resilience that made it to withstand shocks like 9/11, mobilisation of Indian troops on Pakistan border, October 8 earthquake and other incidents.
Mr Asad A Shah in his paper made a presentation on infrastructure development that offers investment prospects in Pakistan.
Mr Arif Elahi, Director General Board of Investment, said that specific investment proposal would be made in light of the suggestions of the dialogue.