Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and President of All Karachi Industrial Alliance and former Provincial Minister Mian Zahid Hussain have said that doing business in Pakistan is almost impossible and like a gamble. Only foreign investors with no other option venture into Pakistan for a host of reasons. Mian Zahid Hussain said that the target of most foreign investors is not technological development or exports but local consumption.

Talking to the business community, he said that only those foreign investors would invest in big projects which can get incredible returns like IPPs.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that investors who want to do business in Pakistan must get dozens of permits and NOCs from the central government, provincial government and local government, and they must face unprecedented corruption at every step.

For this reason, foreign investment is eleven percent in Pakistan. If Chinese investors are not counted, it will remain only a few percent, while foreign investment in India is more than 29 percent and in China more than 35 percent of their GDP.

Foreign investors bring new ideas, new technology and modern processes while increasing the skills and productivity of the local population. Still, they are discouraged in every possible way resulting in skyrocketing debt.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baloch separatists, the lawyers’ movement and the recent civil disorder had caused irreparable damage to the country’s image and economy.

Investors feel unsafe in the toxic political environment, economic downfall and increasing instability. In this situation, only the senseless will consider Pakistan for investment.