According to the US State Department, some 50,000 Americans work in Pakistan. Pakistanis are the largest recipients of Fulbright scholarships. Pakistan has an alumni network of more than 37,000 who studied in the US and went back to Pakistan or are working in the US, the ambassador said. “We have strong linkages throughout the US. Wherever you go you find these Pakistanis in very eminent positions, and they contribute to US-Pakistan relations; so, our people-to-people track is quite strong”
Pakistan’s People-to-People Track with the US is “Quite Strong,” Says Ambassador Masood Khan
By Elaine Pasquini
Washington: “Over the past two years, Pakistan and the US have consciously fostered congruence in their relations, and we would continue to build on this new threshold,” Masood Khan, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, told an in-person and virtual audience on February 20, 2024, in a program hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “Pakistan, I assure you, will have a bright future, despite our present challenges. We are an emerging country and an emerging economy.”
Economic ties between the US and Pakistan are increasing, he continued, with the US being the largest single-country export destination for Pakistan. “Last year, we had a trade surplus of $6 billion in our favor,” Ambassador Khan pointed out.
In February 2023, Pakistan and the US successfully held the ninth ministerial meeting under the US–Pakistan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), after a gap of seven years. Presently, 80 American enterprises are profitably doing business in Pakistan in the food products, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, agriculture, and financial services sectors, the ambassador said. The US private sector is also investing in ICT and alternate energy.
The fifth most populous country with a population of more than 240 million, Pakistan has the 24th largest economy measured by purchasing power parity, according to the United Nations Development Program, Khan noted. Sixty-four percent of Pakistanis are below the age of 30 with 60 percent of the population of working age. Forty-two percent are in the middle class. “We are bilingual, and we have 190 million mobile telephone and 130 million broadband subscribers,” he added. “The nation is tech-savvy, and the economy is digitizing fast.”
To accomplish structural economic improvements, a broad range of economic and human development reforms are being implemented. “We have a national consensus to streamline and eliminate non-targeted subsidies, expand the tax base, trim non-performing state-owned enterprises, pare back market distortions and increase government support for the marginalized segments of society,” Ambassador Khan said. “All these reforms are designed to address fiscal and external deficits and rev up our growth engines.”
Pakistan’s strong diaspora in the US, estimated at one million, builds bridges between Pakistan and the US and is becoming a leader in channeling US investments to Pakistan. In the last fiscal year, he noted, “our US-based diaspora’s investments were $3 billion, the same as in the previous year.”
According to the US State Department, some 50,000 Americans work in Pakistan. Pakistanis are the largest recipients of Fulbright scholarships. Pakistan has an alumni network of more than 37,000 who studied in the US and went back to Pakistan or are working in the US, the ambassador said. “We have strong linkages throughout the US. Wherever you go you find these Pakistanis in very eminent positions, and they contribute to US-Pakistan relations; so, our people-to-people track is quite strong.”
The United States has been emulated in many fields, including agriculture, Khan said, pointing to the Pakistan-US “Green Alliance” which focuses on hybrid seeds and climate-smart agriculture.
Areas of direct interest to American investors include energy, agriculture and critical minerals. These areas have been prioritized by the newly constituted Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), a one-stop shop dedicated to fast-tracking foreign investment. “The SIFC will guarantee speedy approvals, project development and implementation,” he noted.
Sitting on a treasure trove of minerals including some of the largest reserves of copper, gold, lithium, rare earth elements, magnesium and cobalt, Pakistan is offering a raft of incentives to investors. “We have prioritized investment in this extractive industry as a whole,” he said.
Toronto-based Barrick Gold has a 50 percent stake in Reko Diq mine, a $7 billion project in which the Gulf countries are also interested, Khan noted. Barrick considers the mine one of the world’s largest underdeveloped copper areas.
To improve the investment climate, Pakistan is taking measures to strengthen enforcement of intellectual property rights, streamline dispute settlement, ensure protection of foreign investment, give equitable dispensation in taxes to foreign investors, and provide tax exemptions, the ambassador said.
During the question-and-answer session, Daniel Runde, senior vice president at CSIS, pointed out that historically Pakistan bought their defense assets from the US. Now, however, Khan told the audience, the bulk of their defense supplies come from China since in 2018 the supply chain for defense articles was suspended or terminated by the United States.
“We still have a considerable percentage of our defense platforms which are of US origin – F-16s, C130s and helicopters,” the ambassador said. But Pakistan wants “sustainment and fast-tracked approval” for acquiring military supplies. “The United States should be our predictable supplier of our defense equipment,” he insisted.
Runde argued that since today Pakistan has options for defense buying, the US should change its thinking from what it was in 2018. Khan responded that he was grateful to the Biden administration for approving $450 million for F-16 aircraft sustainment and related equipment in 2022.
“What I want to say is that it’s not that there is a systemwide agreement to block defense supplies to Pakistan, but we have to mobilize bipartisan support for scaling up our overall relationship in all realms – trade, investment and defense cooperation,” the ambassador stated.
When it comes to China, it is Pakistan’s aspiration that the United States and China – “the two biggest economies, the two big powers – would solve their problems through diplomacy and they would never reach a point where they would have to confront each other militarily because such a war would be messy not just for these two countries but for the entire world,” he claimed.
“Pakistan should be a meeting point, not a battleground, for the United States and China,” Ambassador Khan said. “Both countries are most welcome to invest in Pakistan in the areas of their respective competencies and competitiveness.”
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
