Islamabad: H.E Mr. Hiroshi Oe ambassador of Japan called on Mr. Saleem H. Mandviwala, Chairman Board of Investment, to discuss the issues related to investors.
Chairman, BOI informed the ambassador that Yamaha is investing in the automobile sector in Pakistan and President Zardari promised lucrative incentives to the Japanese investors during his visit to Japan. In progress to the project, he told that the land has already been allocated to Yamaha in Karachi (port Qasim). Chairman BOI also informed the ambassador that Board of Investment proposes to establish a new Japan Specific Special Economic Zone with broad features like: in Sindh one (1) million acres of Government land is available for the proposed SEZ. The location advantage for industries in the proposed area and vicinity is the direct access of Port Qasim enabling raw material import and finished goods export without incurring major inland transportation costs and saving time and vicinity to the water reservoir is also included in the SEZ plan.
Chairman BOI proposed the ambassador that GoP wants to construct a separate road (worth Rs. 1.2B) for the investors with the support of JICA to link Karachi directly with the industrial areas to avoid the security concerns to the foreign investors. In response to the concern of the security issues in Pakistan, Chairman said that a high priority meeting is scheduled with CM Sindh, Secretary Sindh, security departments and Japanese investors to counter the security lapses with mutual understandings. He further added that in this scenario a better care of the existing Japanese investors can contribute to improve the attractiveness of the country once the issues impeding FDI inflows from Japan are removed with economically viable proposal mutually beneficial for the people of the two countries.
Apart from the current investment, the ambassador showed keen interest for further investments in its dominant areas of business including Financial Business, Automobile, Electronics, Manufacturing Plant and Trade.
For more information, contact:
Mr. Amir Sultan Akhun Khel
Director (P and PR)
Board of Investment
Tel: +9251 922 4103
Fax: +9251 920 7030
Email: directorppr@pakboi.gov.pk