DECLARING that his government would accord highest priority to provision of all possible facilitation to Chinese investors, Prime Minister Imran Khan, on Monday, invited businessmen from the great friendly country to establish their regional offices in Pakistan. He extended the invitation during a meeting with a delegation of 10 leading Chinese companies undertaking business ventures in critical sectors, including energy, communication, agriculture, science and technology, financial sector and industry.
It is important to note that the sentiments expressed by the Prime Minister were not one-sided as members of the delegation reaffirmed commitment to further expand their investment and explore more business opportunities in various sectors of the economy. The participants expressed satisfaction over business friendly policies of the present government, especially in improving the ease of doing business have enhanced confidence of the Chinese business community and Pakistan is being looked as a major partner in development in the post Covid-19 environment. The exchange of ideas during the high level meeting and practical steps being taken to exploit the optimum potential of trade and investment are indicative of unlimited scope of cooperation to the mutual good of the two countries. It may, however, be pointed out that Chinese have all along been desirous of entering into cooperative arrangements in different spheres of life but the pace of translating this desire into reality is wanting mainly because of our sluggish attitude and state of indecision. This is also evident from slow progress on setting up of special economic zones under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) despite the fact that these would bring substantial investment to Pakistan and give a boost to commercial and industrial activities. Similarly, we have all along been pointing out in these columns that frequent increase in electricity and gas tariff is also in stark contrast to our claims about ease of doing business. Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing has also emphasized that his country saw Pakistan as emerging hub of trade and, therefore, our policy and decision-makers need to take practical measures towards that end.
