“Eighty-three (83) U.S. companies have invested over $1.5 billion dollars in Pakistan and are generating revenues of $3 billion, according to the American Business Council,” said Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Masood Khan made these remarks during his interaction with American corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and business executives in Washington DC. “This data shows that the United States has a sturdy and elaborate investment infrastructure in Pakistan and its companies are fully familiar with the business ecosystem in Pakistan,” he said. “Over the decades, Pakistan’s market has remained lucrative and attractive for American businesses,” he added. The Ambassador highlighted that the US International Trade Administration identifies several advantages for American investors in Pakistan, including the absence of shareholding restrictions, simple work permit regulations, no technology transfer requirements, and a large and sophisticated entrepreneurial community. He pointed out that Pakistan was inviting fresh investments in the IT, energy, agriculture, and minerals sectors. “A new entity – Special Investment Facilitation Council – has been created to facilitate foreign inflows into these areas,” the Ambassador told the gathering. Highlighting Pakistan as the fourth largest freelance provider in the world with over 20,000 ICT registered companies, the Ambassador noted that the IT sector, especially tech startups were fast becoming a growth industry in Pakistan. He also projected power sector as another priority area as the country wanted to double its energy production from the current level of 45,000MW in a decade and make a fast transition to renewables. The Ambassador also invited the attention of US entrepreneurs to the treasure trove of minerals in Pakistan that included copper, gold, lead, zinc, iron ore, coal, lithium, rare earth, cobalt, aluminum, chromite and nickel. “Pakistan is developing the human capital and expertise for manufacturing semiconductor chips for application in various electronic and Generative AI supported devices. Our lithium reserves, a key ingredient for battery production, would contribute to future sustainable energy solutions,” said the Ambassador. “We are in the process of modernizing our agriculture. Our objective is to increase the yields of wheat, rice, cotton, lentils, and soya bean through development of hybrid, climate resistant seeds,” he added. Masood Khan briefed the participants in detail about various incentives that were being offered by the Government in all sectors of investment. “We urge the American sovereign wealth funds and investors in general to invest in the IT, energy, agriculture, and mining sectors,” said the Ambassador. He pointed out that Pakistan and United States were passing through a productive phase of their relations after successfully recalibrating their ties in past two year and have developed a road map for cooperation in both security and non-security realms. The Ambassador also shared that the two countries have held several rounds of consultations to give a fresh impetus to their defence cooperation. “We hope that the approvals for sustainment of American-origin defense platforms would come forth soon leading to full restoration of Foreign Military Financing and Foreign Military Sales,” he said. Noting that Pak-US dialogues and collaboration in the areas of climate change, energy, healthcare, education, science and technology, trade and investment were moving apace, the Ambassador said that efforts were afoot to hold a comprehensive economic dialogue to spur growth and build more long-term, resilient relations that directly benefit the peoples of the two countries. He informed the audience that Pak-US trade volume stood at US $10.6 billion in 2022-2023, inclusive of services, with Pakistan’s exports totaling $ 8.4 billion, making the US the largest export destination for Pakistan. Underlining that Pakistan was by far one of the most consequential countries in West Asian hemisphere, the Ambassador highlighted human potential of the country and the massive transformation of the economy towards digitization and e-ecommerce that was connecting its tech-savvy youth with new technologies.
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