Looking to tap into an unexplored segment of overseas Pakistanis, the Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile Industry has advised the government to look out for the wealthy businessmen around the world who migrated from Pakistan soon after partition in 1947
The recommendation aimed at encouraging foreign investment in the country has been tabled in the Senate, but it has yet to be discussed in detail by the house.
The committee has prepared a report, a copy of which is available with Dawn, on the basis of the recommendations of a sub-committee headed by PPP Senator Karim Ahmed Khawaja.
The sub-committee was set up by the main committee headed by JUI-F’s Ghulam Ali in April last year with the main task of “formulating a policy for Pakistanis, who left the country immediately after partition, to invest in the country”.
According to the report, almost five million people belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Parsi and Christian communities left the country and migrated to India and other countries soon after partition.
“Pakistan’s neighbouring countries, especially India, are encouraging these emigrants to invest in India, instead of their ancestral lands in Pakistani Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan,” says the report.
“Muslim Sindhis, Punjabis, the Pakhtun and Baloch living in Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries for 100 years can come and invest in their native homeland.”
The committee has called upon the government to highlight the cultural heritage of non-Muslims in the country so that all those non-Muslims who migrated from Pakistan “are able to develop a strong cultural, economical, social and religious bond with their homeland”.
