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. –Agencies
