Chinese investors see opportunity but local businesses struggle

According to The Express Tribune, a 20-member delegation from the Pakistan-China Business Forum met Punjab's Minister for Industries and Commerce, Chaudhry Shafay Hussain, on October 16. The group, which included representatives of Chinese companies active in electric vehicles, IT, tourism and agriculture, wants to display Chinese goods through a pavilion on 100 kanals of land. Its members also plan assembly and manufacturing lines for electric buses and trucks, and the forum is weighing an IT university in Gujrat.

The report says earlier delegations announced investments in several sectors, and most of those have already materialised. Hussain said the provincial government would supply the site for the pavilion and pointed to chip frame manufacturing, which is set to start in Punjab. He also cited a Faisalabad plant of a Chinese phone maker nearing completion, and put Chinese investment in the province at hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last two and a half years, a sum the report describes as small beside earlier pledges.

Analysts cited a crowded home market for many Chinese manufacturers and Pakistan's population of about 240 million as reasons for continued inflows, despite security risks. Local firms, by contrast, face high borrowing costs, sharper energy tariffs and tax and import curbs, while Chinese rivals often have state-linked finance. A Lahore businessman, speaking anonymously, argued the field is uneven rather than local firms being risk-averse.