UK businesses invited to invest in Pakistan

Karachi: Karachi is a thriving city, being the economic hub of the country and having a major concentration of the country’s industry. There are 130 UK entities with offices in Karachi. We invite and encourage other UK-based investors to invest here too.

This exhortation was made by Agha Siraj Durrani, speaker, Sindh Assembly, while speaking as chief guest at the 92nd birthday celebrations of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Britain at the UK Deputy High Commission on Friday evening.

Durrani said the Queen’s birthday was an ideal opportunity to celebrate seven decades of Pak-UK ties.

These ties, he said, were underpinned by the frequent people-to-people link.

He especially thanked the UK for helping develop the potentialities of the young people of Pakistan. He thanked the UK for all the help it had rendered Pakistan in various fields of endeavour.

Earlier, Thomas Drew, the UK high commissioner in Pakistan, who had flown in from Islamabad, said the evening’s celebration was three-fold; it was the queen’s birthday; it was a celebration of the birth of a son to Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge; and the departure of the Pakistan cricket team to the United Kingdom for a summer series.

“We celebrate the 70 years of our history of cooperation,” he said.

He said that Pakistan had a great future in store with a majority of its population being under 25.

The youth, he said, were a mighty asset for the country’s future. “We do more on education in Pakistan than in any other country,” he said.

He wished Pakistan Godspeed in its endeavour to attain mature democracy and wished Pakistan well in the holding of the coming general elections.

Elin Burns, the UK deputy high commissioner in Karachi, welcomed the guests.

A smartly turned-out detachment of the Royal Irish Guards, which included two women musicians, entertained the guests with popular tunes and a meticulous rendition of the Pakistani and British national anthems, “Pak Sar Zameen”, and “God save the Queen”.