PAKISTAN PM ENTICES THE WORLD TO INVEST IN HIS COUNTRY WITH PROMISE OF LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES
Addressing the World Government Summit in Dubai, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday made a strong investment pitch for his country, advising investors “don’t miss the boat” as Pakistan goes on a business-friendly “upswing”.
Khan, a former cricket player, mentioned a wide-ranging “ambitious reforms programme”, which also includes various opportunities for businesses “to make money”, tax reforms, deficit cuts, tourism development, and a new visa regime.
“This is the time to come to Pakistan, when it is just going on the upswing. This is the time to invest in the country – and don’t miss the boat,” Khan told a huge crowd of summit delegates during his main address at the Madinat Jumeirah resort.
“I repeat the reforms are painful. . It’s like a surgery. When you conduct surgery for a while the patient suffers but that improves,” Khan said.
Also in the audience was His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, VicePresident and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
‘AMBITIOUS REFORMS’
Khan said his party Tehreeke-Insaf eventually formed the government in the last elections, in 2018. “So now we have our reforms agenda… we’ve started our ambitious reforms programme. We’re trying to improve all our economic policies, trying to cut down our fiscal deficit, improve exports, cut down our imports… we’re doing that,” he added.
Pakistan, Khan said, is already seeing “optimism and investors are coming into our country. We feel that this is the time that Pakistan will take off”.
He said Shaikh Mohammad had told him earlier “you must allow businesses to make money; investors must make profits. And the reason is simple… if they can make money, more people come and invest. So this is what we’ve done”.
Khan added: “We’ve started working on ease of doing business… we’re changing our tax laws, which were very cumbersome.” ■
zeroed in on five bizarre, but effective, ideas at an enclosure called Edge of Government at the summit:
What if plastic waste is used as currency?
The Surabaya City Bus project in Indonesia lets people pay for a bus ride with discarded plastic bottles — five bottles for a twohour ride. The result: Surabaya manages to collect 7.5 tonnes of plastic a month.
Algorithm helps refugees find employment.
The Swiss Secretariat for Migration uses an algorithm to locate the best geographical place for a refugee to find a job and integrate into a community. It has helped boost employment rate in Switzerland by 73 per cent.
Can a bus traffic accident be prevented?
In Singapore, the government He also pointed out that Pakistan has “the best tourism potential… Pakistan has probably one of the best mountain sceneries anywhere in the world. Half of the world’s highest peaks are in Pakistan; we have 1,000km of coastline; the oldest historical monuments, as old as anywhere in the world; we’ve the Indus Valley Civilisation; ancient cities.”
Pakistan, Khan added, is also poised to benefit from a unique offering of “religious tourism”. “We have the ‘Makkah’ and ‘Madinah’ uses artificial intelligence to predict whether drivers are likely to cause an accident. Result: Employee accident frequency rate in Singapore has come down to 1.41, below the industry average of 2.8.
What if your digital twin helped steer your life?
Finland has developed a digital twin Aurora to analyse our needs and make predictions. This includes telling you if your career path is good and what you need to do to improve your prospects.
What if cow manure can clear air pollution?
Pakistan’s Karachi city has rolled out buses powered by cow dung. Animal waste is converted into and purified to biomethane so that it can power buses. for the Sikhs – the Sikh religion has its two holiest sites in Pakistan and we’ve just opened those sites for Sikhs.”
International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde met Khan during the summit. “I reiterated that the IMF stands ready to support Pakistan. I also highlighted that decisive policies and a strong package of economic reforms would enable Pakistan to restore the resilience of its economy,” she said after the meeting.
The highlight of the first day of the World Government Summit was a plenary session in the evening where Pope Francis conveyed his message in a video recording to the UAE and the governments of the world.
In the message, beamed to a packed hall in the presence of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and chairman of the Executive Council, and other dignitaries, the Pope said, “I carry in my heart the visit to the UAE and the warm welcome I received. I encountered a modern country which is looking to the future
without forgetting its roots. I saw a country seeking to transform into concrete initiatives and actions the words tolerance, fraternity, mutual respect and freedom. I also saw how even desert flowers spring up and grow. I returned home with the hope that many deserts in the world can bloom like this.”
He said, “It is my sincere hope that the questions underlying your reflections will not only be ‘what are the best opportunities to take advantage of, but what kind of world do we want to build together. This question leads us to think of people and of persons rather than capital and economic interests. It is a question that does not look to tomorrow, but further into the future, to the responsibility weighing upon us: handing on this world of ours to those who will come after