ISLAMABAD  - Special assistant to the Prime Minister and Chairman Board of Investment (BoI), Dr. Miftah Ismail Thursday said that investments into the country would reach to 20 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in next five years, hence promote sustainable economic development in the country.
“Our target is to bring investment level to 20 percent of GDP in five years. Currently the foreign investment into country is about 14 percent of GDP, so we will be increasing it by 1 percent of GDP per year,” Miftah said in an interview with APP.
He said that investments could be enhanced by attracting private sector so the government is motivated to get private investment in by providing lucrative incentives and through the process of privatization.
The private sector brings with it higher international competitiveness, he added. He said that current fiscal year (2013-14) may be tight in terms of attracting investors as framework for investments would be set during this current year.
However, there would be tangible developments in terms of investment inflows into he country during the years to follow, he remarked. The BoI Chairman said that due to investment friendly policies of the government, Foreign companies executing in Pakistan have been grooming rapidly and making huge profits which he said have been becoming motivation for other companies to get in and invest in Pakistan for better benefits.
Talking about the over all law and order situation that is considered important for investments, he said that investors mainly invest in Punjab and parts of Sindh and both these ares are safe as far as security point of view is concerned. He said that although there are some problems in Karachi, but the government has taken comprehensive measures to ensure law and order situation in this financial hub to ensure inflows of foreign investment. He said that there were lots of investment opportunities in Pakistan particularly in infrastructure and energy sector and keeping in view the lucrative investment opportunities, foreign companies are interested in coming in.
 Given to liberal economic policies we are able to attract considerable investment from Japan, Chinese, European Union and North America. Talking about the Japan External Trade Organization’s (JETRO) recent business growth survey which ranked Pakistan as second in the world in terms of business growth, he said that it was not surprising as Pakistan was providing huge incentives as compared to the other countries of the world. He said that Foreign investors do not face any restrictions on the inflow of capital, and investment of up to 100pc of equity participation is allowed in most sectors. It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan has been ranked second in the world in terms of business growth in a survey, conducted by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO).The current survey - which examined records of 9,371 Japanese firms operating across the world - put Pakistan just behind Taiwan in terms of business generated, leaving behind both India and Japan, media reports said. JETRO has been conducting such surveys since 2013. Pakistan’s data was generated from 27 Japanese firms doing business here.
 The results found that 74.1pc of the Japanese companies estimated operating profit in 2013, allotting second rank to Pakistan only after Taiwan (81.8pc).