Syed Mohammad Tahir Every businessman in the world has only one agenda of his life: how to get more money i.e. profit from his business. For that purpose, he invests his capital where he thinks he would get more return and, at the same time, his wealth would remain safe. To achieve this target in this age of globalisation, they invest in those countries from where they could get maximum profit as well as have full security of their capital. On the other hand, countries also receive Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and utilise this foreign exchange for setting up industries in their own countries. In this way, they are also able to provide job opportunities to their people. Pakistan has vast resources under its soil, waiting to be explored. Yet, apart from sufficient, trained workforce we badly need huge funds in order to tap them. The resources that need to be exploited fall into a number of sectors, like energy, services, oil and gas, petroleum refining, telecommunications, financial business, transport, construction, food and last but not the least the textile sector from where huge profit could be gained if the required amount of investment is made. The dilemma is that if a foreign investor wants to invest in Pakistan, he does not find the atmosphere conducive. Bad law and order situation deters a foreign financier to invest here. Nationalisation of industry in Bhuttos era was such a cruel act that not only foreign but also local investor feel hesitation to invest in Pakistan even after four decades. It is an open secret that foreign investment is considered to be lifeline for industrialisation in any country. It is unfortunate that last year witnessed Pakistans overseas direct investment dropping up to 50 percent. The fact is that foreign investment that Pakistan received was mostly concentrated in the services sector and little was invested in the manufacturing sector. This trend would prove to be harmful for the country in the long run, as these investments did not created many jobs, though generated handsome profits for the investors. In the Musharraf era, Pakistan convened quite a number conferences in various countries to attract investors by offering a host of exemptions in taxes but all in vain, as almost every investor showed his reservations about coming forward with capital to a country with poor law and order situation. Conversely, they asked the government why, after all, Pakistani investors do not invest in their own country and prefer investing overseas. The current situation shows a bleak picture for foreign direct investment in the country. There is no proper department that could guide foreign investors and give them expert advice about the requirements of a specific sector, like the inputs available in Pakistan and needed from abroad, how much investment is needed and the estimated profit that could be obtained. Earlier, there was an Advisory Committee for Investment that usually guided local and foreign investors to do business in specific sectors. But now, not only the federal government, but also provincial governments do not have any such department to guide businessmen to their satisfaction. The pity is that a foreign investor who wants to invest in Pakistan feels rudderless when he has to prepare a feasibility report to establish business in the country. He is at a loss how to find from where to get electricity and gas connections and at what price? The fluctuation in power and gas tariffs also confuses investors and they cannot make exact feasibility reports, as prices of these essential inputs and others like petrol keep registering unscrupulous levels of hike without any prior notice. Rico Diq project controversy in Balochistan and Transparency International report on corruption in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh have led investors to see whether Punjab offered better prospects. Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif is striving hard to attract foreign investors and have signed many MoUs with different countries including Turkey and Iran but has not so far catch full attention of investors. Recently, Turkey has signed an MoU to invest more than $500 million in Pakistan and an agreement to set up a 200MW power plant in Punjab to help ease the energy crisis. Last year, Governor Javad Mohammdi Zadeh of Khorassan, north-eastern Iranian province, signed an MoU with Punjab government for the promotion of investment in the province. In the MoU, it was agreed to identify areas of investment for mutual benefit under joint ventures and to explore possibilities of trade, investment, industrial and technological cooperation. Though current investment policies of the Punjab province have been tailor made to suit investor needs of liberalisation, deregulation and facilitation and a separate department named PBIT has been established to provide authentic data to investors about the business the investors want to take up. But there is room for effecting improvement in the performance of this department to succeed in attracting foreign investors. The Federal government has also established Board of Investment (BoI) to attract FDIs but the country has to improve the law and order situation and formulate consistence policies to restore confidence of local and foreign businessmen if they wanted to put the country on the industrial track.