Pakistan is likely to attract investment of $4-5 billion from Qatar during next 3-4 years as Pakistan and Qatar have reached a broad-based understanding on most of the issues, sources told Business Recorder.
They said that the Board of Investment (BoI) and the concerned officials in Qatar had held several rounds of talks and Pakistan was hopeful that the public and private sectors of Qatar would invest four to five billion dollars in oil and gas, telecommunication, roads infrastructure, power, and other sectors.
Sources said that government agencies were finding it hard to convince foreign investors to invest in Pakistan due to energy crunch the country is currently facing. Power shortage is fast becoming a major hurdle in the way of the overall investment, especially the foreign direct investment.
They said the upward trend in prices of utilities, especially gas and real estate, were seen as major challenges for policy makers in attracting foreign investment.
They said that the available gas reserves have already been committed to various industries and at present no gas was available for new investors. Pakistan would welcome foreign investment in energy sector at this critical juncture.
However, an official in BOI said that energy crunch was a challenge as well as an opportunity, for the rising demand of energy would help the government attract investment in the sector. He said there were greater opportunities for the investors in the shape of higher returns on less investment.
He said that the increase in the visits of public and private sectors from the West and the Middle East to the East, especially Pakistan, reflected the interest of the investors here. During the last one-year, or so, 60 full-fledged official delegations and 300 other delegates visited BOI and expressed their willingness to invest here.
He said that it would be a major achievement of Pakistan if it succeeded in attracting this big chunk of investment from Qatar. "The inflow of the investment is in the pipeline. There is likelihood that Pakistan enters into joint ventures with the public and private sectors of Qatar."
The official said that Pakistan would also look into the possibility of foreign investment in Pakistan's planned mega cross-border gas projects including Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and also gas import from Qatar. Pakistan must implement at least one of these projects as early as possible and it is essential for maintaining the GDP growth at around 7 percent per year, the official added.