"Our target is to bring investment level to 20 percent of GDP in five years. Currently the foreign investment into country is about 14 percent of GDP, so we will be increasing it by one percent of GDP per year," Miftah said in an interview with state run media.
He said investments could be enhanced by attracting private sector so the government was motivated to get private investment in by providing lucrative incentives and through the process of privatisation. The private sector brought with it higher international competitiveness, he added.
He said current fiscal year (2013-14) might be tight in terms of attracting investors as framework for investments would be set during that current year. However, there would be tangible developments in terms of investment inflows into the country during the years to follow, he remarked. The BoI Chairman said due to investment friendly policies of the government, foreign companies executing in Pakistan had been grooming rapidly and making huge profits which he said had been becoming motivation for other companies to get in and invest in Pakistan for better benefits.
Talking about the overall law and order situation that is considered important for investments, he said investors mainly invested in Punjab and parts of Sindh because both cities were safe as far as security point of view was concerned. He said although there were some problems in Karachi, but the government had taken comprehensive measures to ensure law and order situation in that financial hub to ensure inflows of foreign investment. He said there were lots of investment opportunities in Pakistan particularly in infrastructure and energy sector and keeping in view the lucrative investment opportunities, foreign companies were interested in coming in.
Given to liberal economic policies we are able to attract considerable investment from Japan, Chinese, European Union and North America. Talking about the Japan External Trade Organisation's (Jetro) recent business growth survey which ranked Pakistan as second in the world in terms of business growth, he said it was not surprising as Pakistan was providing huge incentives as compared to the other countries of the world. He said foreign investors did not face any restrictions on the inflow of capital, and investment of up to 100 percent of equity participation was allowed in most sectors.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan had been ranked second in the world in terms of business growth in a survey, conducted by Jetro. The current survey - which examined records of 9,371 Japanese firms operating across the world - put Pakistan just behind Taiwan in terms of business generated, leaving behind both India and Japan, media reports said. Jetro has been conducting such surveys since 2013. Pakistan's data was generated from 27 Japanese firms doing business here.