Aizaz Chaudhry said that CPEC has opened new avenues for Pakistan and is considered an emerging investment hub for a large number of investors from the world, and this trend is recently being followed by Corporate America. Ambassador, Aizaz, emphasized that Pakistan's IT firms and professionals must explore new export opportunities and forge investment links with US IT firms.
Ambassador Chaudhry said that for the foreseeable future the US would remain a global leader in technology. Pakistan attaches great importance to its relations with the US and intends to further strengthen bilateral relations in various fields, including IT. In this context, a large number of Pakistani IT professionals visit the US to serve here and also to sharpen their professional skills, he said. The 16-member delegation of IT professionals from Pakistan has been visiting Washington to participate in Microsoft's five-day global partner event "Inspire" which ended on Thursday.
In a similar development European investors, in particular Swiss investors, are beginning to look at Pakistan with interest for investment, particularly driven by the value addition offered by CPEC. In early July, a delegation of the Swiss Business Council (SBC) Pakistan visited Switzerland to invoke Swiss investment and enhance bilateral trade between the two countries in view of the opportunities offered by CPEC. In the event held by Swiss Global Enterprises (SG-E) on July 4 near Lucerne by the Swiss Asian Chamber of Commerce (SACC) and Asia Society on July 5 in Zurich the value-addition offered to investors under CPEC in terms of local and regional connectivity and accessibility to unexplored markets through state-of-the-art road and rail network, enhancement in the energy capacity of the country through an investment of $35 billion and establishment of over 30 Special Economic Zones all over the country.
All the events were remarkably well attended by the business leaders, bankers, Swiss business chambers and opinion-makers, and the importance of CPEC to Pakistan and to Swiss business was understood and recognized as a positive development for the region.
The Federal Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO) was also briefed on the salient features of CPEC. SG-E is the trade development authority of Switzerland, whereas, SACC and the Asia Society of Switzerland facilitate business and social and culture linkages between Switzerland and Asia. All of them have a large membership in Switzerland and Asia. Swiss Business Council works in close partnership with these organizations to develop businesses and improve the perception of Pakistan. Pakistan needs more of these global initiatives to reach out to foreign investors at their doorstep. The perception of Pakistan, in view of aggressive foreign media, is bad and needs dramatic improvement by reaching out to business leaders and opinion makers to correct this perception. It's lot of hard work. But CPEC is something we now have in hand, and this must be used to full extent to present to the world the new image of Pakistan. For Pakistan, the CPEC is a project of connectivity, an energy corridor and economic zones for all investors to make use of.
Most European countries need new markets in view of the America-First policy. And so does the UK after moving out of the EU. Pakistan being an emerging market, whose economic and political dynamics are spurred by CPEC, has a good potential to fill in these gaps and capitalize on the given situation. CPEC offers Pakistan a rare opportunity to move out of global isolation and be positioned instead as a global player, if not a leader in Southeast Asia. With its emerging political leverage in the region, a growing middle class, a free media, functional democracy and judiciary and formidable defence institutions in place, Pakistan is all set to position itself well in the region. It only needs to put its act together. All have to work hard for it. Few have recognized their responsibility and opportunities and are working on it, whereas a large majority has still to wake up and join in.
(The writer is President Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry)