Foreign Investment in an
economically developing country like Pakistan is considered a blessing for the
economy and usually termed as an important factor of economic development.
Our businesses, industrialists and economic managers take several measures to
bring foreign investment. Regulators like SECP modify rules and regulations
relating to foreign direct investment to gain confidence of foreign investors
and provide them an easy way to invest in Pakistan. Our economic managers allow
various concessions and tax exemptions and rebates to these foreign investors,
as our government has done in Gwader where it has given operational control of
Gwader Port to Singapore Port Authority for a period of 40 years and given tax
exemption on its income for the same period of time.
However the question arises: should foreign investment be encouraged in
Pakistan? In my opinion the sensible answer to such sensitive question is that
foreign investment should be limited to a great extent and that should also be
closely monitored. I thought of writing this column after reading an eye-opening
book " Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" written by John Perkins.
According to the writer, who once was also the member of Economic Hit Men, a
group of economists who have the mission of establishing the Global Empire of
more powerful countries like USA, Israel,etc. For this purpose, EHM uses
corporatocracy (multinational corporations, international financial institutions
like IMF, IFC, World Bank,etc.) to make economies of weak third world countries
dependent of developed countries and IMF,etc. These MNCs (multinational
corporations) establish their businesses in developing and under developed
countries, destroy local businesses by selling their products with better
quality and at competitive prices. These companies pay heavy taxes to the
government and in return gain access to the decision making process especially
corporate and tax related policies. These companies creates "consumerism" which
is an important factor of poverty and unemployment.
EHM convinces the government of development projects with their services and
expertise. The government is asked to take loans for development projects . Then
machinery is imported for those projects which puts heavy burden on balance of
payment and our imports payments sharply increase due to the import of machinery
and repayment of loan with interest. Pakistan allocates a significant amount of
its annual budget for the repayment of foreign loan and its interest which is
taken on the name of economic development. Once a country is trapped by IMF,
World Banks, etc. it can not release itself form it and once such a country
defaults in repaying loan, then it has to fulfill the demand of donors like
giving the managerial or ownership control of state-run entities, giving access
to sea and air routes to the donors, reserving votes in the UN for donor
countries and like which ultimately renders the borrowing country the colony of
the donor country. According to the writer EHM has done so in Ecuador. America
made agreement with the Saudi Arabia in 1974 that the latter will not stop the
supply of oil to the former and in consideration to it, the USA will convert the
SA in modern and highly developed country. According to the writer Pakistan is
the next target of EHM and we can see this happening now when our economic
managers withdraw sales tax exemption on exports which will make our exports
uncompetitive, they increase rates of sales tax and federal excise duty which
will increase the inflation, they will bring education, health and pharma sector
into tax net which will increase the difficulties of the masses,they have
withdraw subsidies on diesel, petrol, electricity, telephone, wheat,etc which
have resulted in the mounting prices of these items, they are increasing power
tariffs month by month, they are selecting state-run-entities like Pakistan
Railways, Pakistan Post, Civil Aviation Authority,etc to privatize them. However
they are not lowering the their personal expenses and expenses of our forces
which take away a significant amount of annual budget rendering a very small
amount to be spent on health, education and infrastructure which have left our
industry in miserable condition all this is happening to take a loan from IMF
amounting to $ 7.6 billions!
We should remember that Pakistan is strategically an important country in the
world. It is an easy way to Central Asia through Karachi and Gwader Ports which
is again a highly sensitive region due to the presence of Israel and oil riched
Islamic countries. It has borders with China, India and indirectly with Russia
which are the most significant countries of the world. Pakistan is highly riched
in minerals and other natural resources and above all Pakistan is a single
ideological nuclear Islamic country which is the center f expectations of all
the Muslims across the world. To control high oil riched central Asian
countries, it is necessary to control Pakistan. To control Pakistan our enemies
send their agents to the Pakistan in the name of trade, investment and
prosperity. They have used these cosmetic words in a number of countries and
remained successful. History tells us that the East India Company was also
entered the Indo- Pak Subcontinent on the name of trade and prosperity of the
people of subcontinent and once they established their business here they
weakened the economy of subcontinent by way of exporting raw material to the
Europe at lower prices and importing finished goods and selling them in the
subcontinent at higher prices and then they gradually captured the whole
subcontinent and ruled over this region for 90 years.
This is an important lesson of history for us. We should be very careful of such
slogans like free trade, globalization, economic cooperation and coordination,
global village, economic integration, privatization, consumerism,etc.We should
find alternatives of IMF,etc and we should coordinate with our friend countries
like China, Japan and all Muslim countries. Although this is not an easy task
and these measures will certainly cost us lives of several important figures but
for the safe future and for the sake of our sovereignty and security we should
do this.