Yearning for foreign investment

Prime Minster Shahid Khaqan Abassi is participating in the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in the Swiss Ski resort of Davos with a strategy of clear and pragmatic priorities. He has done his homework to convince the executives of foreign companies to make investment in Pakistan. He will also speak at Built and Road Impact session with five other panelists. Former Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif used to give no importance to the annual meetings of WEF. He skipped the meeting in 2016 whereas PTI Chairman Imran Khan attended it with active participation in panel discussions.  In 2017, he did attend the 47th annual meeting of WEF but could not address any of the more than 400 meetings because of his intellectual shallowness, speaking and articulation syndrome.

More than three thousand business elites, social activists and media representatives will attend the 48th annual meeting of WEF including about 70 heads of states or governments and 38 heads of major international organizations. In this high profile event, a Pakistani Pavilion will be established for the first time. A two day conference on the sideline will feature discussions and receptions on Pakistan’s economy and gender empowerment. The Prime Minister will make an “Investment in Pakistan Pitch “to a gathering of wealthy business executives and powerful world leaders. He is also scheduled to speak about positive impact of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) besides geopolitical changes in South Asia and adjacent regions. This year theme is “Creating a Shared Future “in a fractured world amid a wave of protectionism across Europe and the United States that has stirred fears among the champions of free trade. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the meeting on Tuesday and US President Donald Trump will address the closing ceremony on Friday with his “America First “message which is in contrast to the theme of the annual gathering.

Merely showcasing CPEC will not persuade the European, American and Japanese business executive to take risk of their investment in Pakistan, having extremely unfavorable economic environment, security and law and order problem of chronic nature. The successive government neglected the priority of human resource development resulting in a dearth of trained manpower. China will initially bring bulk of its own work force for the industries which are relocated to the Special Economic Zones in Pakistan. Afterwards Chinese trainers will impart on the job training to Pakistani workers to handle the Chinese technology.

The bitter fact is that Pakistani workers even lag behind their counterparts in technical expertise in Bangladesh and Srilanka. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is honored to inaugurate the first session of WEF because of the size of India’s economy and an impressive reservoir of highly trained manpower. Low prices of energy inputs; availability of highly skilled manpower at comparatively low wages and progressive taxation structure provide a conducive environment for foreign investment in the form of relocation of various industries and joint ventures. On the other hand the tariffs of electricity and gas in Pakistan are the highest in the world; tax structure is regressive and manpower is not properly trained to handle sophisticate technologies. Over the past four years Pakistan signed large number of memoranda of understanding with a number of developed countries including UK and Germany but none of them went through the stages of letter of intent and financial close.

Unlike the Chinese, European and Japanese companies are very environment conscious and are reluctant to invest in a country where laws of environmental protection are null and void. The government is not bringing out the Nitti Gritty of CPEC long term plan particularly the shady details about the Special Economic Zones reveal as to whether International Environmental Laws will be abided or the ones enacted in China and Pakistan. This is a reality that environmental laws are not implemented in letter and spirit.

Most of the coal based thermal power plants are being built close to population of cities to endanger the lives of the general population. Dream of massive foreign investment will come true only when the economic environment is made favorable, level of human resource is substantially raised and environmental laws are seriously implemented in line with the provisions of Paris Agreement of Climate Change.