Remittances by Overseas Pakistanis Step-up to over $5 Bln  
By Sarah Kamal 'Pakistan Times' Special Correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Remittances by Overseas Pakistanis will increase to over $ five billion in the current fiscal year against $ 4.62 billion last year.

Speaking to 'Pakistan Times' [Daily E-newspaper] Federal Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan said on Wednesday that last year the remittances were $ 4.62 billion, a quarter of the last year exports of $ 16 billion.

In the year 1999-2000, the remittances were less than $ one billion, he added.

About 7.5 million overseas Pakistanis live in United States, Canada, Europe, Middle East and Far East and in the first six months of this fiscal year they sent $ 2.6 billion as foreign remittances, the Minister informed.

The Investment Conference of Overseas Pakistanis organised by his Ministry will be held on March 5-6.

The conference will provide the overseas Pakistanis an opportunity to interact with local entrepreneurs and look for new investment opportunities in the country, he added.

The President and Prime Minister will address the inaugural and concluding sessions of the conference. The four chief ministers and AJK Prime Minister have also been invited to the conference.

The four provinces have also been asked to announce incentives and bring projects to the conference, which could be of interest to expatriates, he added.

Ghulam Sarwar said the government had asked the expatriates to inform it about their projects of interest, area of expertise and volume of potential investment.

The overseas Pakistanis intended to invest $ 500 million in power sector,$ 472 million in dairy development, $ 196 million in construction and $ 66 million in information technology. The minimum investment for each project will be $ two million, he added.

He said dairy development is an important sector as import substitution can be done in it.

At present, Pakistan imports meat from India despite the fact that it has an agro based economy and seventy percent of its population lives in rural areas, he added.

Through investment in livestock projects, he said, the meat and milk production can be raised.

Pakistan is the fifth largest milk producer in the world, he added.●