Pakistan To Receive Billions Of Dollars Investment In Major Projects: Fawad

(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Pakistan to receive billions of dollars investment in major projects: Fawad

LONDON, Dec 8 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Dec, 2018 ) :Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Friday said Pakistan would receive investment of billions of Dollars as different countries and major companies had decided to set up oil refineries and expand their business operations in the country.

Talking to mediamen here, he said the government's economic chart was very clear and companies like Pepsi and Coca Cola had decided to expand their operations in Pakistan with an investment of $ 1.6 billion, similarly the American company Exxon Mobil had shown interest to invest billions of dollars for oil exploration.

He said Saudi Arabia would set up an oil refinery with investment of $ five billion and United Arab Emirates would come up with a big investment for an oil refinery besides major investments in China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

"We want the British companies to invest in Pakistan. About 120 British companies were already operating in Pakistan. There is a need to bring further investments and ultimately as was stated by the Prime Minister, Pakistanis would not need to go abroad for jobs. They will go for tourism purposes but it is our ultimate dream that they don't have to go outside for jobs. The future of Pakistan is very magnificent." He said Pakistan was stopping money laundering and increasing remittances through legal channels.

If Pakistan could increase its remittances to $30 to $35 billion by making it easy for Pakistani workers abroad to send money, then it would bring advantage for Pakistani economy, he told.

The minister said even people from abroad were sending messages that they wanted to send money for the dam fund and they ask how they could send money as the mechanism of State Bank to transfer funds had remained difficult. "We are making the process easy," he remarked.

He said 200 textile units in Punjab were being revived and thousands of jobs would be created.

To a question, he said nobody could dare to use violent language in Britain where freedom of expression was beyond doubt.

The state could not function if the judges were threatened, he said adding the society could not function, if a group tried to impose its will on others with threat of force.

"The society can only function when the constitution and law is followed. PTI has taken action against individuals and big violent groups threatening top government functionaries and citizens." To a question, he said it was a problem if somebody increased its assets hundreds of percent after staying in government for 10 years.

The minister said media's payments amounting to Rs 1.3 billion were due and the Federal and Punjab governments released Rs 260 million and Rs 220 million to media respectively. "We released almost 50 percent of the dues but the media workers are still losing jobs. In the past far bigger payments were made to media owners but conditions of the media workers did not change." The minister said, "We are concerned about the difficulties being faced by low level media workers in keeping their jobs." Fawad said when attention was drawn to this issue, then powerful people turn against you and they complain against the Information Minister and say the media was being damaged.

"Tell me when a country is drowned in loans of Rs 30000 billion, how we can say that all media institutions will be run by the government. Tomorrow a shop owner and industry owner will also say that the government should pay for his loss." Media should study its business model, he said adding he was trying that media get opportunities at international level.

He said that big studios were being made in UK and there was a shortage of makeup artists, technicians and carpenters.

Responding to another question, Fawad said the provinces did not have the capacity to run the universities which were not upto international standards and were now getting out of the list of top 500 universities of the world after the 18th constitutional amendment.

He said problems were also faced on standardization of drugs in provinces.

He said peace was needed to bring people out of poverty so Pakistan would make efforts for peace.