Foreign Affairs offices lethargic attitude discourages expats investment

KARACHI: Apart from the factors deterring foreign direct investment in Pakistan, the lethargic attitude of officials at the offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Pakistan, as well as abroad, is discouraging investment by overseas Pakistanis, a stocks broker said.
“The central bank has channelised workers’ remittances through Pakistan Remittances Initiative (PRI), which has almost doubled in the last five years, but there has been no effort to direct non-resident Pakistanis’ saving towards the country’s investment avenues,” he said.
Besides, the typical government official attitude of the staff of various consulates and camp offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strongly discouraged overseas Pakistanis’ investment in stocks, real estate and the SME sector of the country.
“The inter-consulate verification and endorsement of documents is not an easy job at all,” he said, adding, if a non-resident Pakistani needs to get some document verified from Pakistan or vice versa, it would take over a month even in this electronic age.
The non-resident Pakistanis strongly criticised Pakistan’s consulates in Toronto, Canada; Dubai, UAE and Jeddah, KSA.
“My brother in Toronto sent a power of attorney in my name, which I need to get verified from Pakistan’s consulate in Toronto through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Camp Office in Karachi to make a property transaction, but it has been two weeks and there is no trace of my application,” Adeel Ahmed, a Pakistani born Canadian national, said.
He said visiting the consulate in Toronto is nothing less than a nightmare for Pakistanis living there.
Azhar Memon at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Camp Office in Karachi told The News that all the delays were on the part of the consulates abroad.
“Pakistani consulate in Toronto is the least responsive. There are over 100 applications pending verification and endorsement with the Toronto Consulate for over a month. They are not responding, despite calls, faxes and emails,” Memon said.
Nadeem Naqvi, chairman of the Karachi Stock Exchange, said a day ago over 50 percent of Pakistanis in the United States, Canada and Europe were quite well-off and their savings if attracted to the country’s investment avenues could make a big difference.