Khalid Mansoor, Former SAPM for CPEC Affairs and Minister of State, along with Haroon Sharif, Former Minister of State and Chairman Board of Investment (BOI) visited OICCI to discuss the possibilities of leveraging Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure for private investment. Amir Paracha, President OICCI, M Abdul Aleem, CE/Secretary General OICCI and Kashif Shafi, Executive Director OICCI welcomed the delegation.

Haroon Sharif and Khalid Mansoor shared that the purpose of BRI is to enhance regional connectivity and develop regional market for greater economic cooperation and promote inter-regional trade. Chinese government and businesses are keen to take the ongoing economic relation with Pakistan from Government-to-Government level, to the next step of engaging and onboarding with the private sector in form of Government to Business and Business to Business relations. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a flagship project of BRI, is not just a Pakistan – China project, but it involves the whole region involving Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Italy, and Hungary, and is open to other big economies like Germany, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and UK as well. It opens a huge widow for investment and growth for the businesses in Pakistan, especially the OICCI members. Given that the private sector presents concrete business proposals, the chances of engagement and partnership are very bright.

Amir Paracha expressed that it is now the time that Pakistan must shift from aid to investment and should aim to be a more connected economy with the region and be an active participant of the global value chain. M Abdul Aleem emphasized the continuity and consistency of the policies, an absence of which hurts capitalizing the business opportunities. He thanked the guests for their candid discussion and keen interest in engaging with OICCI and agreed to have more interactions on the matters discussed.