Business forum seeks incentives for overseas Pakistanis

Believes these will lead to increase in remittances, investment in country

LAHORE: The All Pakistan Business Forum (APBF) has asked the government to announce incentives for overseas Pakistanis in order to give a further boost to foreign remittances, besides enhancing investment in the country.

In a statement, APBF President Syed Maaz Mahmood noted that Pakistan’s economic growth, after reaching a 13-year high at 5.8% in FY18, was expected to fall over the next two years. Thus, “the flow of foreign remittances is the only way to support the current account balance as the gross domestic product (GDP) growth is going to decelerate to 3.4% in fiscal year 2018-19 and further drop to 2.7% in FY20.”

Mahmood, while painting a gloomy picture of Pakistan’s GDP growth, said an upward trend in the inflow of remittances from overseas Pakistani workers was a positive news for the country’s economy. They sent home $16.09 billion in first nine months (July-March) of FY19, which was up 8.74% compared with $14.80 billion in the same period of previous year.

“It is also good news for the country that Pakistan’s trade deficit has narrowed 11% to $21.5 billion in first eight months of the current fiscal year, but exports have risen marginally despite a huge depreciation of the rupee,” he said.

However, “if the government is eyeing $27 billion in export revenues in the current fiscal year, it would have to take measures to boost exports and investments,” he emphasised.



If the government assisted overseas Pakistanis and provided them with incentives, they could play a pivotal role in boosting Pakistan’s economy through remittances and investment for socio-economic prosperity, the APBF president said. He was of the view that overseas Pakistanis could invest in agriculture, transportation, telecom and energy sectors, which had a huge potential.

However, he pointed out that the government had badly failed to attract foreign investment because delay in approval of projects discouraged the investors. He asked the bureaucracy to introduce simple procedures by revisiting the existing processes, so that the investors could be facilitated.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2019.

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