Would you invest in Pakistan?

[MIG]

An interesting dilemma for overseas Pakistanis who are more concerned about providing flood relief at the moment then worrying about business opportunities etc but worth a read...

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs....ate=columnists

Why Pakistanis are reluctant to invest in their country Rehan Khan Last Updated: September 12. 2010 10:17PM UAE / September 12. 2010 6:17PM GMT Pakistan’s national carrier is today a byword for atrocious management and lack of customer service. Arif Ali / AFP Last week some Pakistani banker friends of mine described their country as a basket case. Over the years, their country has become a lost cause, they said. It cannot feed its people, safeguard its borders, manage its finances or provide a secure environment for people to live in. The situation has been festering for some time, but the catastrophic floods of recent weeks and the sheer inability of the authorities to deal with them have propelled the matter to a global stage. It’s something that many causal observers have known for some time. The country is appallingly run. [Read more on above link]

Rehan Khan - the author of this article will be more than happy to answer any feedback on this forum.

[d0gers]

I think he raises two very important points as to why people are reluctant to invest, namely the security situation and lack of law and order, as well as corruption.

Corruption though is something that can be worked around. Corruption at many levels in Pakistan can be anticipated, so you simply treat it as a cost of doing business. It ends up not really contributing that much towards the riskiness in the returns you expect. This is by no means an ideal situation but more a case of the ends justifying the means.

But the poor law and order situation is an entirely different matter. When the government can't guarantee basic safety of life and property, hardly anybody will want to invest in such a scenario.

[d0gers]

Can the writer clarify one point? Towards the end of the piece he writes:

Whether the same will hold true of Pakistan is a challenge for the administration. If it fails to improve matters, then the voters who formed into feudal blocks at the last election must look to alternatives, across sectarian lines.

What does he mean by "voters who formed into feudal blocks" and what are the "alternatives across sectarian lines". Didn't really touch on this in much of the article so just wanted to know what he meant. Thanks.

[MCMLXXXII]

I know some people who have bought land in Pakistan and when they went to visit a few years later they found an apartment complex constructed on that land, the people even had all the legitimate paperwork for it.

If these kind of things are common, why would anyone be willing to take a risk like that?