'SIFC to tap Pakistan’s potential in key sectors'

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has established the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) as a ‘single-window’ platform to facilitate investors, forge cooperation among government ministries and departments, and fast-track project development, Ambassador Masood Khan has told a U.S. forum.

Introducing SIFC to OPEN Chicago, an association dedicated to the promotion of entrepreneurship and professional excellence within diaspora communities, he said that the Council’s objectives included revitalization of the country’s economy, integrating it with international capital markets, and ensuring continuity of policies by adopting best practices and providing salutary investment milieu.

In this regard, the ambassador identified five areas ripe for investment in Pakistan — IT, energy, agriculture, mining and defence production.

“The SIFC will shorten lengthy business processes, develop a whole of the government approach and tap Pakistan’s potential in key sectors of information technology, energy, mining, agriculture and defence production by generating and attracting foreign direct investment,” he told the forum in Chicago.

Masood Khan said Pakistan and the United States have had strong strategic and economic ties over the past 76 years that continue and “we foresee brighter prospects for its growth.”

The two sides, he said, were enhancing the space for economic partnership encompassing trade, investment, energy, climate change, health care, education, agriculture, technology and people-to-people exchanges, the state news agency reported.

“This is an ideal time to invest in Pakistan and to promote the country’s products and services in the United States.”

Noting the availability of a robust communication and data infrastructure with high-speed internet to support the growing gig economy and human capital, the ambassador said that there was exponential growth in tech startups of Pakistan during the past 4-5 years.

“In 2018 the venture capital funding for Pakistani startups was merely $10 million a year. Today it should be more than $1 billion a year. Our IT exports are $3 billion, he said.

The Ambassador also highlighted investment opportunities in various sectors of the economy including diversification of its energy mix, mineral resources earth metals and the agriculture sector especially towards increasing yields of agri-products, corporate farming, dairy farms and feedlots.