Punjab is becoming a progressively more significant player on Asia's economic map. In 2010, the 92-million-strong province located in the heart of Asia will exceed Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh in terms of the value of its Gross Provincial Product.

Punjab believes in free trade where there are no restrictions against exports or imports. We also welcome foreign direct investments (FDIs) and do not restrict the repatriation of profits and capital.

Due to our prudent economic policies Punjab’s economy has turned out to be more resistant to the recession and better managed than most of the world's developing regions.

While trade and investment liberalization are important, a holistic model for overall economic development should also incorporate economic and technical cooperation. It is our endeavor that this cooperation between investing nations be reciprocal and is based on equality, mutual benefit and complementarity.

It is because of this pragmatic approach to financial management that Punjab is experiencing an average growth rate of about 7.5% since 2003. According to the Economist magazine, the world's developing countries grew three times faster than the developed countries since 2003, and we in Punjab are among these high-growth regions with specifically high IRR figures in agriculture, housing and power sectors.

As a largely agrarian province which sustains itself, Punjab offers abundance in food crops and livestock produce. Among the largest production numbers in the world are found here in rice, cotton, wheat, dairy and meat. It also offers various mineral resources and a very large skilled labor force in numbers. Despite the political crisis that plagues the region, Punjab has historically been the hub of democratic forces supporting industrialization and a stable judiciary.

However, this stable political and economic situation would in itself not be an attraction, were it not for a well-developed system of investor incentives and my personal promise and commitment to transparent and good governance. We do not believe in offering investors concessions without focusing on long term returns. Rather, this province's vision is to create measures that work, and to improve the institutional integration at the federal and line department level.

To oversee the end-to-end process ourselves we have established the Punjab Board of Investment and Trade (PBIT) managed by experts from the private sector for which I painstakingly recruited a team with global expertise and vision. This organization is created to parallel successful Investment Promotion Agencies around the world.

Punjab has arrived and is reaching out to global partners around the world to discover the opportunities that this newly discovered market offers.

Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif
Chief Minister Punjab