F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: The Board of Investment (BOI) is committed to improve Pakistan’s ease of doing business ranking to under 100 within two years to attract the international investors in the country.
Main business centers of Karachi and Lahore play major role to portray better ease of doing business in this regards, and provincial governments of Sindh and Punjab are in better coordination with centre, senior official of BOI told APP here on Thursday.
He said that time, procedure, cost and companies’ registration and rapid business process including other 10 indicators define the ease of doing business ranking at international level.
Replying to a question, he said that Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has also decided to prioritize the two new Special Economic Zones (SEZs) including Islamabad and Baluchistan in total of five SEZs.
Applications for setting up private SEZs are being considered for further approval, he said adding that private SEZs would be fully facilitated on the line of government SEZs, including provision of tax exemption and one window operation to further ease down doing business in the country.
He said that BoI was working on 100 days’ reform agenda with a deadline of March 20 for executing the 35 reforms to attract maximum foreign investment in the country.
The official said that around 75 percent of work on 100 days’ reforms agenda had been completed and all the concerned institutions including Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Employees Old- Age Benefits Institutions (EOBI) are also on-board for adopting the integrated approach for ease of doing business reforms.
Replying to another question, he said that BOI is committed to facilitate the foreign investors to attract maximum Foreign Direct Investment in the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to be established under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
The foreign investors in SEZs would get the facility for plant and machinery import without customs duty in all four provinces of the country, the senior official said.
He said that countries including China, Germany and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were interested to invest in SEZs in different regions of the country.
