Foreign firms happy over Pakistan’s stability; interested to invest: PM

KARACHI, Dec 22 (APP):Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Friday said the foreign companies were taking interest to invest in Pakistan, being happy over the stability brought in by the incumbent government during the last four years.
Addressing a launching ceremony of ‘Promotion of Home Remittances Through M-Wallet and Policy for Promotion of SME Finance” here at State Bank Building, the prime minister said a major political change took place in Pakistan on July 28 this year, but it could neither hamper country’s economic policies nor the development projects. “This is what we take pride in,” he remarked.
Governor State Bank of Pakistan Tariq Bajwa, senior bank officials also attended the ceremony.
Khaqan Abbasi said much of the remittances came through informal sector despite the fact that the Pakistani community abroad was contributing remittance equal to the country’s exports.
He said the people who were investing in Pakistan were glad over the economic reforms made by the government, and recalled the recent launch of work on a textile and car manufacturing plants in Faisalabad.
He said consequent to the very reforms and robustness of the political system, the companies were pleased to invest in Pakistan despite some difficulties.
The prime minister said the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were the backbone of the national economy despite the fact that half of the start-ups usually met failure and the rest were success.
He believed that Pakistanis were the natural entrepreneurs as they had the precedents of establishing successful businesses in multiple fields.
He urged the banks and other financial institutions to cope with the needs of the SMEs and called for changing the relevant laws to facilitate the sector.
Prime Minister Abbasi said without strengthening the SMEs, the economy could not flourish.
He said the SBP should not control the SMEs through the same policies it had been toeing for other institutions. He viewed that the SMEs industry could flourish, if the financial institutions extend their support in that regard.
However, he said there was a need to explore new business and investment opportunities for the SMEs and also urged the private sector to come up with the proposals in that regard.
He said the government had decided to adopt carrot and stick policy to broaden the tax net to make the people realize that paying taxes was their responsibility.
He said the government was striving to improve the taxation system because the non-payment of taxes by the people concerned put burden on those who should not be paying taxes.
He said the government was trying to achieve economic stability within short span of time, besides bridging the deficit between the current and fiscal deficit.