‘FDI Strategy’: Karachi placed 7th in global survey

Findings were made by a division of Financial Times to determine economic prospects

KARACHI: Karachi has secured 7th position in the top 15 Asia-Pacific Cities of the Future survey under the FDI Strategy category for 2017-18, an incredible increase from its 14th position in 2015-16.

The findings are part of a survey, 'fDi's Asia-Pacific Cities of the future 2017-18', conducted by the fDi Intelligence division of the Financial Times to determine economic prospects of the cities in the region.

The FDI Strategy category of the survey is the only qualitative category, and does not feed into the overall result. This is the sixth category for which there were 15 submissions. In the previous rankings, FDI Strategy had been included in the overall ranking.



According to the survey, Perth, Australia, secured the first position in the FDI Strategy list while Brisbane, Australia, and Hong Kong came on second and third position respectively. Other cities in the list include Auckland, New Zealand, (4th position), Wuxi, China, (5th), Melbourne, Australia, (6th), Yokohama, Japan, (8th), Newcastle, Australia, (9th) and Osaka, Japan, (10th).

"Due to painstaking efforts and strong determination, we have been ranked seventh in terms of FDI Strategy," said KCCI President Muffasar Atta Malik.

He said that the Karachi Chamber first participated in fDi Intelligence survey last year by providing valuable inputs about Karachi. Consequently, our city managed to secure the 14th position in the top 15 Asia-Pacific Cities of the Future 2015-16 - FDI Strategy, which has greatly improved this year.

Malik said that Karachi has left behind many prominent cities around the world including Yokohama (Japan), Newcastle (Australia) and Osaka (Japan) who are ranked 8th, 9th and 10th, respectively in the Top 10 FDI Strategy Asia-Pacific cities of the future 2017-18.

Karachi has also been ranked 4th in terms of cost effectiveness in the list of Top 5 Asia-Pacific Mega Cities of the future 2017-18 by the fDi Intelligence. Lahore also made it to the list and secured the 5th position.

Appreciation his R&D department for providing credible input to fDi Intelligence, which has helped in diluting many misconceptions about Karachi, the president said that it was undoubtedly a notable achievement for the city.

"KCCI has been struggling hard for the past many years to promote the positive image of Karachi and highlight it as the right destination for foreign investment."

He said that he is fairly optimistic that Karachi will be able to secure even higher ranks in future as the city has gained further business momentum.



Overall Top 10 Asia-Pacific Cities of the Future 2017-18

In the overall ranking, Singapore once again took fDi's crown as Asia-Pacific city of the Future, while Tokyo retained its second place and Hong Kong rose to third position. On the other hand, Seoul got 4th position, Shanghai 5th, Taipei 6th, Beijing 7th, Sydney 8th, Osaka 9th, and Kuala Lumpur came in at 10th position.

To create a shortlist for fDi's Asia-Pacific Cities of the Future 2017-18, the fDi Intelligence collected data using specialist online tools fDi Markets and fDi Benchmark. In total, 163 locations were analysed for the study.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2017.

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