ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif on Thursday urged Turkish entrepreneurs and businessmen to take advantage of Pakistan’s business-friendly climate and bring in investments in energy, infrastructure and agriculture sectors.
Addressing a Pakistan-Turkey businessmen roundtable conference organized by the Board of Investment (BOI) in Islamabad, the prime minister also urged the Turkish businessmen to also benefit from China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that had brought about $ 46 billion investment to Pakistan.
“With the large scale industrial parks and zones that are going to be built along the corridor, we are confident that it will trigger unprecedented industrial and commercial activity in Pakistan.”
“We would like our friends in Turkey to become part of this economic development programme by exploring and exploiting massive investment opportunities that CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) is bringing to Pakistan,” the Prime Minister told the Turkish businessmen.
Besides the businessmen from Pakistan and Turkey, the roundtable event was also attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Speaking about the economic achievements made by Pakistan during the last over three years, the Prime Minister said: “With commendable efforts of our economic team led by our Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, our economy has bounced back to stability during the last three years of this government’s term.”
He said, “Inflationary pressures have receded, fiscal deficit has remained well within target, confidence in exchange rate management has been restored and there has been a substantial increase in foreign exchange reserves.”
The Prime Minister said during this period the country’s stock market had remained buoyant, and was being regarded as one of the best performing markets of the region.
“Healthy growth is taking place and its rate is increasing. As a result international rating agencies have upgraded Pakistan’s economic outlook as well as its ratings. Pakistan is also among this year’s global top ten improvers in ease of doing business index 2017,” he added.
The Prime Minister informed that his government was focused on energy crisis and they were confident that by the start of 2018 they will completely overcome the power shortage.
“We have also started importing LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) and we are setting up more LNG port terminals in private sector including the one being set up by our Turkish friends,” he added.
Source: APP
