Pakistan encourages Turkey to invest in Economic Zones

On Tuesday, while meeting with Turkish delegation Naeem Zamindar, chairman of BOI (Board of Investment) encouraged Turkish companies to invest in Pakistan’s SEZs (special economic zones) that could bring good tax incentives. The delegation was led by Atilla Yerlikaya who is the chairman of Turkey-Pakistan Business Council.

“Pakistan is open for all companies around the world to set up industries in the zones (SEZs) to transfer technology and start manufacturing in Pakistan”, stated Naeem Zamindar.

There were keen discussions about the possibilities of increasing the cooperation in the fields of bilateral trade, investment and business development relations between the two countries. Zamindar reportedly invited Turkish investors to invest in all sectors of Pakistan specifically in agriculture machinery, mining, and pharmaceutical.

The chairman of the board said, to spur industrialization, compete on the global level and to upscale the investment, the SEZ law has been formalized. He added, “Pakistan offers exemption from custom duties and taxes for all plants and machinery imported into Pakistan as well as an income tax holiday for 10 years for the special economic zones”.

Moreover, it was suggested that Pakistan needed to move away from resource-based and low technology exports but instead excel towards the adoption and development of medium and high technology productions and technological sophistication.

On the other side, the delegation said that Turkish Foreign Economic Relations Board would like to introduce the Turkish business community to Pakistan and the Pakistani business faction to their country.

The statement said, “Yerlikaya mentioned that a comprehensive free trade agreement covering commodity and services trade as well as investments will definitely deepen bilateral economic cooperation,” and that the “mutually agreed exceptions for certain industries can be identified within the scope of a comprehensive agreement.”

Furthermore, the delegation head stated that in order to define the right scope to reduce bilateral trade and investment barriers, both the business communities would have to contribute to these negotiations.

There were seven rounds of talks to finalize free trade agreement between Pakistan and Turkey. Sartaj Aziz, deputy chairman of Planning Commission also contributed in this matter.

However, the agreement is yet to be finalized but in the end, there were hopes from the Turkish representatives that trade and economic relations between the two countries would further be nourished.

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