ISLAMABAD:
The government is trying to restructure the Board of Investment (BOI) by allowing the private sector to be part of the organisation, and not the bureaucrats, for promotion of investment in the country, said BOI Chairman Saleem H Mandviwalla.
“BOI cannot be run as a conventional bureaucratic government organisation anymore,” he said in an interview.
“We are also trying to create special economic zones and incentives would be given to industrial investors who will come to the zones for investment,” he said.
He added that the government would also create industrial zones with incentives at different locations, so that cost of doing business could be reduced in those zones. He also advised the government to deregulate the power sector just like it did in the telecom sector.
“Let everyone generate their own power and sell to anyone they like,” he said, adding that the flood water could have provided electricity for the next five years, had it been utilised wisely.
“We register companies on a fast track basis and in the registration process we are better than China and India and ranked 85th out of around 180 countries doing the same business,” he remarked.
“We have created local boards of investment in Punjab and Sindh and now moving towards Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in this regard,” he remarked. “Though foreign investment is less these days, we are still better than other countries,” he remarked.
Mandviwalla said that the biggest sector and opportunity is in the agriculture sector, which he thinks is unexplored an has not been looked at by real investors from the agriculture business. He said that the country has vast area with a number of fields and businesses which can attract massive investments.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 15th, 2011.
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