BOI and IPDF sign MoU to boost investment
By Asad Cheema

ISLAMABAD—The Board of Investment (BOI), and Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IPDF) here on Wednesday signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work in unison for promoting Public Private Partnership (PPP) in particular and investment in general, pooling their resources and manpower.
Mushtaq Malik, Secretary BOI and Ijaz Ahmed, Chief Executive IPDF signed the MOU on behalf of their respective organisations. The MoU signing was witnessed by Dr Salman Shah, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue and Wasi Zafar, Minister for Privatisation and Investment.
Under the MoU, the two organisations will cooperate and jointly market the investment opportunities in the infrastructure sector in Pakistan. The Board of Investment will make available its outfits to IPDF to facilitate better coordination with provincial governments.
The IPDF and BOI will hold road shows and investors conferences. The first event will be the Investors Conference scheduled for March 2008. This conference would showcase infrastructure projects to attract potential investors.
The two organisations would also share information on projects, which could attract investment and leverage it into attracting domestic and foreign investment. The services rendered to each other would be free of cost. Dr Salman Shah speaking on the occasion said that the investment-friendly policies have so far attracted over US $ 8 billion investment.
He lauded the role of the BOI, which played an actively role in attracting this investment in the country.
Similarly, he said that the Prime Minister in the ECC meeting held yesterday (October 13) has given a target of US $ 1 billion this year to IPDF under a policy approved for promotion of public private partnership with particular emphasize on infrastructure projects.
Wasi Zafar, Minister for Privatisation and Investment in his remarks said that with over 7% GDP growth, Pakistan needed increased flows of investment to development is infrastructure for creating matching conditions for foreign investment.
He said that the private investment especially in infrastructure would augment the government’s public sector development programme to promote investment in the country.