Foreign investors urged to invest in south Punjab

MULTAN: The Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) has called upon the foreign investors to invest in south Punjab to get more profit as labour is cheaper here than other parts of the country coupled with availability of raw material.

Talking to media men here on Tuesday, MCCI president Malik Asrar Ahmed Awan said south Punjab was an attractive destination for foreign investment as it was located on the route of CPEC. He said government should offer lucrative incentives to foreign investors and this zone must be declared as zero-duty to attract the foreign as well as local investors. He said under the CPEC, many constructions and development projects had been started in Pakistan in energy, infrastructure development, communication and other sectors.

Moreover, nine Special Economic Zones would be set up under the CPEC in Pakistan that would provide good investment opportunities to foreign and local investors. He said foreigners should focus on technology transfer to Pakistan and set up industrial units here.

He emphasised that Pakistani trade and business attaches should apprise the investors of these potential investment opportunities and play their role in promoting the FDI in Pakistan. He also expressed concerns over the rising external debt and liabilities of the country that have soared to a record level of $91.8 billion by the end of March 2018 as per the SBP’s latest report. External debt and liabilities of the country have shown an increase of over 50 percent during the last four years and nine months.

He called upon the government to take urgent measures to reduce the country’s dependence on rising foreign debt, as it would create more problems for the economy.

“Previous government had resorted to heavy borrowing to meet the current expenditures and run the affairs of the country.

But starting from July 2013, the quantum of external debt kept growing due to the government’s inability to implement policies that could have ensured sufficient non-debt creating inflows like the FDI and exports promotion,” he added. The MCCI president said due to imprudent policies, the external debt has gone up from $60.9 billion in 2013 to $91.8 billion showing an increase of over 50 percent. He said the current government had acquired a whopping $30.9 billion in external loans, which was taking its toll on the national exchequer due to the mounting debt servicing cost.

Awan cautioned that if this trend was not curbed immediately, the external debt would soon touch $100 billion that would create grave challenges for the economy. He stressed on the government to reset its priorities and take urgent measures to reduce the country’s reliance on heavy foreign borrowing as rising debt servicing affect the pace of economic growth of the country.

Rs144.5m water rate recovered from growers: The irrigation department has recovered over Rs144.5 million water rates (Abiana) from the growers during the Rabi season 2016-17 and Kharif season 2017.

The irrigation officials Tuesday said the irrigation teams had recovered water rates worth over Rs144.5 million from growers in four districts of the Multan zone. Over Rs22 million water rate was recovered from Multan, about Rs19.9 million from Lodhran, over Rs61 million from Vehari and Rs40 million from Pakpattan during the Rabi season 2016-17 and Kharif 2017 from July 2017 to April 2018.

Meanwhile, over Rs1 million water charges (Tawan) were recovered from four districts, including Rs375,463 from Lodhran, Rs123,805 from Vehari and Rs588,144 from Pakpattan districts during the same period. The irrigation teams continued raids to control water pilferage across the region to ensure proper water supply to the tail-end growers, they added.