World Bank to help Pakistan bring about more reforms

The Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan and the visiting World Bank's President David Malpass celebrated Islamabad's huge improvement on the ranking of the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) and the bank assured its firm support to help Pakistan further in bringing more reforms on various fronts to make doing business easier in years to come.

"It's pleasure to be here in Pakistan and join those of you who have championed the Ease of Doing Business and done so much work, thank you Prime Minister, thank you everyone. The reforms you undertaken would create better jobs and higher incomes, attract more investment and generate more tax revenues.

I also want to encourage more reforms to spur growth and raise living standards," the President of the World Bank Group expressed his views at the Doing Business Reforms Exhibition arranged by the government to celebrate this great achievement.

World Bank president was accompanied by Regional VP South Asia Hartwig Schafer, Ms. Ceyla PazarbasiogluDutz, Regional Vice President IFC Ms. Snezana Stolijkovic and Country Director World Bank Pakistan Patchamuthu Illangovan.

Prime Minister Imran Khan congratulated the BOI, Sindh and Punjab government for the hard work they put in for making this improvement. He thanked the World Bank president for coming to celebrating this great achievement. He said we are also involving the Bank in developing infrastructure of Karachi.

Khan said what we want right now, the gain we have made 28 points up, it's the beginning what we must start up with is a different mindset, that making money is not a sin as long as you pay your taxes. This mindset in Pakistan is extremely important if we have to create wealth. Wealth creation is how it will help in getting out of current situation.

We have big deficits. Current account deficit has narrowed down but still we have fiscal deficit. Creation of wealth would help the country collect more taxes that would be spent on the human beings. This is the model for Pakistan. And we want industrialization, we want wealth creation, we want lift people out of poverty.

"Contact enforcement is a challenge; we cannot invite investments, unless and until investors have trust on our judicial system. And I hope to be working with current chief justice who is one of the best jurists and one of the best minds in the justice system.

He said that we already working on criminal justice system," Khan said.

The other thing is how we get contracts enforced. "We have already suffered, major damages have been awarded against Pakistan i.e. Reko Diq, Karkey and it all because of justice system."

We have to get the female population in national building. World Bank president said that there are more reforms under the EODB, reforms needed to protect women's welfare, and include them in the economy, reforms needed to strengthen the energy and education sectors and reforms needed to simplify taxation.

Last week we launched our annual report on EODB which provides snapshot of the rules and regulations that affects businesses in every country.

"Pakistan emerged one of the top 10 reformers this year, this would add to the growth and jobs over time. Pakistan carried out the most reforms in South Asia region, your country jumped to 108th place in the ranking from 136th last year. Your reforms made easier for entrepreneurs to start business, get electricity and construction permits, register property, pay taxes and trade across the borders," he said. Many of these advances leverage digital technologies to make the process more transparent and streamlined.