Web Desk (LTN NEWS): Qatar’s Emiri Diwan said on Wednesday that the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) plans to invest $3 billion in Pakistan. This will help the cash-strapped economy.
Pakistan’s economy is in trouble, and the country is facing a balance of payments crisis. Pakistan’s foreign reserves have dropped as low as $7.8 billion, which isn’t even enough to pay for imports for more than a month. The country is also dealing with a growing current account deficit, a weakening rupee against the US dollar, and inflation that hit more than 24% in July.
“The Qatar Investment Authority said it wanted to invest $3 billion in different business and investment areas in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,” the Emiri Diwan said, without giving more information.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made the announcement while he was in Doha. He met with the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on Wednesday after meeting with the QIA on Tuesday.
The Emiri Diwan said, “His Highness emphasized the importance of the brotherly and strategic relations between the two countries, as well as their desire to strengthen their economic partnership by increasing trade and promoting investments through the Qatar Investment Authority.”
The prime minister is going to Qatar before a meeting of the International Monetary Fund next week. At that meeting, more than $1 billion in financing that has been stuck since the beginning of the year is likely to be approved.
PM Shehbaz asked Qatar’s $450 billion sovereign wealth fund, QIA, to invest in Pakistan’s energy and aviation industries on Tuesday.
He had said before that he would focus on areas like renewable energy, food security, industrial and infrastructure development, tourism and hospitality, and food security.
Sources close to the prime minister said that he was likely to offer Qatar shares in state-owned businesses like Pakistan International Airlines and the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, which are both losing money.
