The Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) – a hybrid civil-military forum –hosted the final day of the Pakistan Investment Roadshow in Dubai which brought together a large number of global businessmen and investors representing diverse sectors.

According to a statement, the event was held with a “prime focus” on attracting foreign investments under G2G and G2B frameworks.

On June 20, the government formed the SIFC under its ‘Economic Revival Plan’ with an aim to capitalise on Pakistan’s untapped potential in key sectors, fast-track the development projects, and facilitate investment.

The-then Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the new forum would serve as a top decision-making body to push through fundamental reforms in the economy’s structure.

The SIFC’s senior leadership gave a comprehensive brief on the council’s initiative, highlighting potential and investment opportunities in key sectors of agriculture/livestock, IT and telecom, mines and minerals, and energy (power, oil and gas).

Major policy-level interventions, undertaken through the SIFC platform to improve the investment ecosystem in the country, were also highlighted.

“The leadership of SIFC proactively engaged the investors and pitched SIFC’s projects in the key sectors; SIFC welcomed the investments from public and private sectors and assured an all-out support to realise such ventures through a collaborative ‘Whole of the Government Approach’,” it said.

The investors’ community lauded the event as an “important initiative” that afforded opportunities to engage investors across the world. The investors “exuded great confidence” in the SIFC initiative they described as a novel approach towards regaining investors’ trust, and exhibited keen interest in the investment opportunities broached by the SIFC.

“The successful conduct of the Pakistan Investment Roadshow helped project SIFC initiatives in a great way a global pedestal. The mega event provided great opportunities to the global investors for networking with Pakistani public and private sector, and it is expected to open new vistas of investment collaboration.”

In September, the caretaker ministers after the SIFC meeting announced that the government has decided to introduce ‘business-friendly’ visas and equip as many as 200,000 youths with information technology skills to tap the billion-dollar sector, which generates $2.6 billion worth of exports but has a capacity of $10 billion.