Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Amendment Bill 2022 sails through Senate

Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Amendment Bill 2022 sails through Senate

Pakistan

Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Amendment Bill 2022 sails through Senate

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - The Senate on Friday passed the Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Amendment Bill 2022. 

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar presented the bill which had been passed twice in the ongoing week. During his presentation of the amendment bill, the senators from the PTI started chanting slogans and created an uproar in the upper house. The government introduced amendments to the bill after the coalition partners expressed their reservations. 

Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani congratulated the people of Pakistan and said the bill would put the county on the path to progress. “This bill relates to my district and that the present government has included the amendments presented by its allies.

On Monday, the National Assembly had passed the Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Bill, 2022 with majority vote for the promotion and protection of certain qualified foreign investments in the country. The bill, which was part of the NA’s supplementary agenda and already passed by the Senate, was presented by Minister for Law and Justice Azam Nazeer Tarar on the floor of the house.

Thanking the House for passing the bill without any amendment, Mr Tarar assured on behalf of Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif that the legislation was Reko Diq-specific. He said the provincial assemblies of Balochistan and Sindh had passed the resolutions under Article 144 of the Constitution authorising parliament for necessary legislation on the matter. He said the following project would yield maximum fruits for Balochistan and it would provide from 35 to 40 billion dollars in the next 30 years to the province.

During this significant business, Balochistan National Party (Mengal)’s Muhammad Akhtar Mengal, Minister for Housing and Works Maulana Abdul Wasay, Balochistan Awami Party’s Khalid Hussain Magsi and Jamaat-e-Islami’s Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali expressed their apprehensions and opposed the bill.

Resolution in favour of FIFA World Cup passed

The upper house also passed a resolution on the successful conduct of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. The Qatari Ameer and the people of Qatar were congratulated in the resolution. Senator Sardar Sarfraz Bugti presented the resolution in the upper house.