Pakistan offers investment opportunities to Austrian firms

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday showcased potential investment opportunities in petroleum, energy, financial, and information technology sectors in a Pak-Austria Investors meet-up, where it underscored upcoming petrochemical policy to encourage foreign investors with more facilities and tax-breaks.

The Board of Investment (BoI) organised the meet-up, where Minister of State and Chairman BOI, Muhammad Azfar Ahsan, Advisor to PM on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood, Vice President of Austrian Federal Economic Chamber Carmen Goby, and Austrian Foreign Minister, Alexander Schallenberg were keynote speakers.

The business delegation from Austria and notable members from Pakistan’s private sector participated in the event. Presentations were delivered by Pakistan’s public departments to highlight government policies and incentives for the visiting investors.

The BOI chairman stressed that Pakistani and Austrian business communities have always enjoyed fraternal bilateral relations. Elaborating on Pakistan’s potential in petroleum and energy, Ahsan said the country was blessed with one of the world’s best locations for solar and wind power generation, and some foreign companies were already successfully working in these areas.

He also mentioned the petrochemical policy that was being formulated by the government to open new vistas of investment. “Austria has been an important development partner and there is a need to further strengthen business and investment relations to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes by focusing on regular exchange of trade and investment delegations to explore all untapped areas of potential cooperation. “

Apprising the participants of several investment opportunities in Pakistan including energy, financial services, power generation equipment, etc, he underscored that despite promising potential for bilateral economic engagements, investment cooperation has reduced over the years. “Hence it is time to focus on business-to-business (B2B) interactions, especially in sectors such as energy, railways, engineering, construction, information technology, and tourism sectors,” he added.

Ahsan also shared that BOI being the apex promotion agency of Pakistan was mandated to facilitate industrialisation, materialise export potential, encourage diversification in knowledge-based sectors, and enhance a new level of global economic connectivity through effective policy advocacy, investment promotion, and facilitation.

He assured Austrian investors of support, and said that he was positive that B2B discussions would facilitate cooperation in engineering and energy sectors.

Dawood briefed the audience about Pakistan’s liberal investment regime in detail. He shared that the performance in the large-scale manufacturing, construction, and export sectors of Pakistan was encouraging.

He informed the potential Austrian investors about incentives in special economic zones (SEZs) with the overall objective to accomplish economic and industrial development goals.

He welcomed Austrian investors to the Pakistani market and discussed opportunities available in Pakistan’s textile, engineering and energy sectors.

Dawood stressed that there were immense opportunities for collaboration in the areas such as sugar production, beverages, and milk products, plastics, synthetic filaments, made-up textile goods, clothing and accessories, leather goods, shoes, cotton, etc, and assured the investors of full support from the government of Pakistan.