ISLAMABAD - Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday said Pakistan would have to carry out economic diplomacy to avoid bailout packages from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Foreign Office in that regard would play the role of an anchor and fully cooperate with every ministry to attract overseas Pakistanis and foreign investors to increase economic activities in the country, he said speaking to the Pakistani community in Kuala Lumpur. He said all those Pakistanis, who had love for their motherland, would have to be invited to invest in the country. He referred to Malaysian businessmen who showed keen interest to invest in Pakistan. The minister said around 85,000 overseas Pakistanis based in Malaysia sent more than $1 billion remittances to Pakistan every year. “ We are proud of such respectable Pakistanis who send their hard earned money to Pakistan and contribute to its uplift while there is a second category of people who are plundering the national resources and siphoning off the public money, and stashing the same in foreign countries.”

Qureshi, while appreciating the role of overseas Pakistanis in the country's development, said time had come to differentiate between the people who earned their livelihood through fair means and those who looted money from Pakistan and sent it abroad.