Observer Report
Beijing
Pakistan business environment has shown considerable improvement in recent years under CPEC, as it is ranked 108 among 190 economies in the WB Ease of Doing Business ranking,
This was stated by the Chinese scholar Zheng Xizhong, while reviewing the impact of CPEC on Pakistan’s economic growth, according to Gwadar Pro App.
Pakistan has secured a place among world’s top 10 business climate improvers. International credit rating agency Moody’s has also upgraded Pakistan’s credit rating outlook to ‘stable’ from ‘negative’.
Foreign companies have made additional investments in Pakistan. Last October, Hong Kong-based port operator Hutchison Port Holdings committed investment of $240 million for container terminal capacity increase at Port of Karachi.
In the same month, Nestlé inaugurated a new juice plant worth $22 million in Punjab to increase its production capacity in Pakistan. Cargill and PepsiCo, global food and agricultural producers, both said they would expand or make new investment in Pakistan.
Fundamentally speaking, the successful development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC) in recent years has ushered in historic development opportunities for Pakistan.
Second, as I have often said, the construction of the CPEC, Pakistan’s strategic position, Pakistanis’ love for peace and their keen expectation for a better future, have made the world’s major investors termed Pakistan as a place of huge potential and immense investment value.
Third, Pakistan’s security situation has improved substantially, as the government issued a series of favorable policies, and the business environment improved significantly. Fourth, China is one of the world’s major investors.
Its huge investment in Pakistan has played an important leading role and Pakistan is now China’s largest investment destination in South Asia.
If anyone asks about the biggest problem for Pakistan’s investment environment, it might be the political stability, which now worries foreign investors most.
Therefore, in order to attract more and more domestic and foreign capital to invest in Pakistan, the stability of the political situation and the government, and the continuity of policies should be well maintained.
There should be judicial guarantee for the continuity of policies, so the investment policy will not be affected by the change of government, Cheng Xizhong added who is the visiting Professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law.
