The workshop was jointly organised by the Board of Investment (BoI), Ministry of Privatisation and Investment, and Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS) which is a joint service of the International Finance Corporation and World Bank.
Hafeez lauded the government for achievement of manifold increase in investment during the last six years. "Pakistan has never before been a popular destination for foreign investors", he said, and added that despite such discouraging situation, foreign investment in Pakistan increased remarkably.
Foreign investment in the 1990s was about $400-500 million. It increased to $900 million in 1999 and to $1 billion in 2004.
The minister said that change in government did not change the investment infrastructure. As a result, the outdated and useless strategy was applied to seek foreign investment. This resulted in fiasco and the general investment scene remained the same.
He said that the role of FIAS was very important as an advisory body for attracting foreign investment. He agreed that some might disagree with FIAS's methodology but its feedback was necessary to increase foreign investment.
Shaikh suggested some remedies to the chronic problem of inefficiency and faulty marketing strategies. He said that in his opinion it would be fruitful to remove the ambiguities in the numbers and figures to transmit the right picture to prospective investors. "Right policies should be framed; proper marketing in Pakistan should be in the right frame and facilitation to the investors should be faultless", he added.
He disapproved the non-sustainability of government reforms, saying that they should be institutionalised. "One of the major problems is that government departments do not work in a proper manner. It creates difficulties for the investor when they interact with government officials."
The Minister was very enthusiastic about the privatisation process and termed it a boon for national economy. It brings hard cash that could be used in profitable ventures thus increasing government's capacity to pay foreign debt as well. He admitted that there were some misgivings about the process of privatisation among intellectuals but it could be explained to the non-conformists.
James Crittle, South Asia Regional Programme Co-ordinator with FIAS, and Jean-Paul Gauthier, South Asia Programme Staff of FIAS, gave presentations to point out the barriers faced by investors in Pakistan and other South Asian countries.
Some important steps that were described in the workshop were registering property, enforcing contracts, getting credit, beside many others. All these steps created barriers from government officials, which delayed the process of actually starting the business. In some cases, foreign investors were so much frustrated and annoyed that they just packed up and left the country.
Earlier, Fatimah Shah, Investment Policy Analyst with FIAS, spoke about the working strategy of FIAS that also advises on the environmental issues.
Khalid Feroz, President, KCCI, was also present at the workshop.