Syed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari, Minister of State, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis & HRD. Pic: Abdul Basit/The Peninsula
Several Qatari companies have expressed keen interests to make huge investments in manypromising sectors of the Pakistan’s economy. The investments may include acquiring equity stakes in the country’s main airports and power plants, a senior advisor to Pakistan’s Prime Minister revealed to The Peninsula.
The government of Pakistan has announced plans to privatise up to 30 percent equity stakes of several important airports of the country, including Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, aiming to upgrade and modernise country’s key infrastructure and generate resources for other developmental activities.
“As we are privatising a lot of our assets, we have had meetings with the top officials of several prominent Qatari companies, including Sheikh Nawaf bin Nasser Al Thani (Chairman of Nasser Bin Khaled (NBK) Holding, and top officials of Qatar Investment Authority, in this regard. We are looking at our airports selling equity of it,” H E Syed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari, Minister of State, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis & HRD, told this newspaper recently.
Minister Bukhari, who was here on an official visit leading a trade delegation, added: “We are working for a JV venture with The Roosevelt Hotel in New York. We are also looking to develop and enhance our tourism and hospitality sector with the Icon group coming to Pakistan and opening hotels and resorts.
“We have just privatised two of our energy terminals (including gas fired-power plants) and Qatar’s Nebras Power is probably bidding for it. In addition, there are a lot of projects in the pipeline that we are working to implement together with Qatar.”
Commenting further on the airports modernising programme, he said that like many other developing countries, Pakistan’s government has also decided to commercialising nearly 20 to 30 percent of the country’s main airports.
“We have got an extremely positive response from the Qatari side. In fact they have been very positive, and we have been a little bit slow in completing the paper works. So we are trying to move fast, and expecting Qatar to bid for them as well,” he said.
He noted that modern airports with contemporary facilities, better services, better control, and better management will also give boost to the tourism industry.
“In addition tourism, energy and aviation, the commerce ministry is working to expand and deepen the bilateral collaboration in many other sectors, including the export of food, meat, livestock, and other agricultural products.”
The two-way trade exchange between Qatar and Pakistan reached QR9.5bn in 2018, witnessing an unprecedented 63 percent growth (y-o-y) as a result of better ties. The balance of trade is currently skewed in favour of Qatar due to the export of high-valued products to Pakistan. But the South Asian nation is also working aggressively to enhance collaboration in the field of manpower aiming to increase the flow of remittances, which will eventually make the economic relations more balanced.
Currently some 150,000 Pakistanis live and work in Qatar and remitting about $400m annually (2018) to the cash-strapped Pakistani economy. Pakistan has been working to secure more Qatari visa to provide doctors, engineers and other skilled manpower.
Commenting about the cooperation in the field of shariah-compliant banking and financial services, the minister noted that there is a “natural cohesion” in this sector, and Islamic banks in Pakistan are extremely important has a very promising future.
“We are coming up with several remittance models which are going to be sharia-compliant. We are also coming up with various Islamic products such as financing cars, houses, and other credit benefits, especially for the overseas Pakistanis.
On collaboration with regard to 2022 FIFA World Cup he said that talks are already going on with the top officials of the Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), and soon both sides are going to sign agreements to establish cooperation, including for providing security personnel, fast speed drivers, traffic management staff, and also footballs for the mega event.
In his concluding remarks, the minister reiterated: “The bilateral ties between Qatar and Pakistan are better than they have ever been for at least a last decade or so. The leaders from both the countries have a brotherly relationship, to say the least. We are here to expedite the bilateral cooperation, which is deepening and expanding in several areas, including the tourism, construction, civil aviation, and energy. When it comes to energy, we have a natural coexistence with Qatar, especially in terms of importing LNG. It’s a sector that we are discussing to enhance the level of cooperation.”
