Islamabad, Pakistan:
Pakistan’s internal security situation is deteriorating. There is a rise in criminal gangs at the local level. All of this has further jeopardised the development and peaceful existence of Pakistani society.
Concerns have also been raised by China, flagging security concerns regarding projects under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Chinese have been requesting repeatedly and giving out warnings to the Pakistan government for giving priority to the security of its personnel and property, reported the Financial Post.
This highlights the on-ground situation in Pakistan. The condition has continued to slip out of hands of the authorities. One of the grave examples of this is the Karachi blasts.
After a deadly suicide blast in Karachi that killed three Chinese in April 2022, China had to ask thousands of its nationals working on CPEC to increase their security and watch out for terrorist risks. It also warned that a special unit to attack Chinese officials and installations had been formed by entities opposed to Chinese investment in Pakistan, especially in the restive Balochistan.
This issue is not limited to the security of Chinese assets and workers alone.
Faultlines in Pakistan’s economic policies have led to challenges for the rest of the social and commercial ecosystem. The perceptible deterioration in law and order across major cities has clearly hit the morale of investors including overseas ones.
Ground-level feedback from various channels points towards a visible setback to industrial activities due to security challenges cropping up across Pakistan.
The latest annual security survey conducted by the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) report, ‘Members Security Survey 2022’, reveals a declining trend in businessmen’s confidence with respect to the law and order situation in the country.
It provides an area-wise account of depleting faith of local companies in the law and order situation and the administration’s ability to tackle it. Karachi which is the nerve centre of commercial activity in Pakistan and is also called the financial capital of the country reveals a disturbing picture.
Around 64 per cent of the respondents felt that there had been a deterioration in the current security environment. This is significantly higher than the corresponding figure of 50 per cent of respondents, reported in 2021.
Only 5 per cent of the people consider the situation to have improved significantly in the city. This represents a huge decline from 17 per cent of participants who were optimistic on this count during the 2021 survey.
