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United States offers support to Pakistan's Board of Investment (BOI),
Privatisation Commission (PC) and the Pakistani companies to visit USA for the
promotion of existing Trade and Investment relations between both the friendly
countries. Mr. William H. Lash, III, Assistant Secretary of Commerce of USA
stated this during a meeting with Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Federal Minister
for Privatisation & Investment here today.
The visiting leader of the US delegation Mr. William H. Lash while lauding
Pakistan's endeavors in the field of economy said that there was tremendous
amount of opportunities in the investment and privatisation fields, which
should be kept growing under the leadership of the President General Pervez
Musharraf and his economic team.
He said that both the countries enjoyed close friendly ties, which would grow
further in the coming days. Pakistan had market access in the US to the tune
of US $ 2.3 billion per annum, which was increasing and targeted with
substantial increase this year. Among the friends and partners we wanted to
see growth to continue and would also like to see some market access to
Pakistan, he added.
Earlier, while elucidating the salient features of Pakistan's Privatisation &
Investment policies and programs the Federal Minister for Privatisation &
Investment Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said that our policies were pro private
sector and macro economy was market oriented. Growth rate was 5 %, exchanges
rate was stable, stock markets were the best performing, exports were above
eleven billion US $, so far investment ensured was US $ 800 million, which was
70 % higher than the last year, he added.
Dr. Hafeez Shaikh further stated that all sectors were open for foreign and
domestic investors with attractive incentives and there was no restriction on
equity limit or repatriation of the money in any sector. After holding the
successful Privatisation & Investment conferences at Paris and Islamabad,
regional conferences within Pakistan and at China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and
USA were being scheduled, he said.
He stated that Pakistan had an ambitious Privatisation Program, which was
ensuring participation of quality players from within and outside the country
in almost all the sectors, including fertilizers, industry, utilities,
financial and other sectors with utmost transparency and upto the satisfaction
of the participants. We were offering larger companies for privatisation with
the transfer of the management control, while the other mode of privatisation
was offering of shares through stock market, involving direct participation by
the people, which was also open and transparent and so far this government had
realized about Rs. 6 billion, the highest any government had done in the
shortest period after assuming the power, the Minister said.
Giving an over view of the Pak-US Trade relations the Chairman BOI Mr. Waseem
Haqi informed the delegation that presently 70 US companies were operating in
Pakistan in various sectors and our trade figure was increasing.