Hello, everyone. Good morning. So we'll get started now, and I thank you all for coming. Very happy to welcome you to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I'm James Schwimmlein. We've titled this conversation, Is Pakistan Open to American Business? Which I think is an intentionally provocative framing on a question that isn't particularly new, but is very policy relevant in the moment. Pleased to welcome Ambassador Ali Siddiqi, who is Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States and has been appointed for the last 10 months by this government in Pakistan as ambassador at large for foreign investment. His job is to go around and promote doing business in Pakistan, to promote exports to Pakistan. It's kind of all around of the business relationship, not just with the United States, but in Europe, occasionally in Southeast Asia, and also occasionally with regards to China. Ambassador Siddiqi has exactly the nexus that I think we're talking about today, which is economic policy, business experience, and foreign national security policy expertise. In addition to being the previous ambassador to the United States, he also served as the special assistant and senior advisor to the former prime minister of Pakistan in a policy role. Prior to that, he was and he continues to be an entrepreneur and an executive, a business executive in his own right. Ali started a JS private equity management group and was the chairman and CEO of JS Bank. He also was one of the anchor early investors in the largest private airline in Pakistan, Air Blue, and the second largest steel refinery in the UAE, AGSI. I'm going to give brief framing remarks for this conversation. Then I'm going to invite Ambassador Siddiqi to the stage to continue this conversation with opening remarks. And then we'll have an armchair conversation before welcoming your questions. And before I go any further, I should say this is all on the record. We're streaming live. Don't say anything that can be hold against you in the future. That goes for Ambassador Siddiqi and I as well. So this discussion comes just a week after an important moment in this region. And that is the U.S. Taliban agreement on a potential path to a future intra-Afghan dialogue. I think we need to be clear about what that agreement is. But for this conversation, just before that agreement was announced, Secretary of Commerce, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross visited Pakistan. He was the second Commerce Secretary to ever visit the country. And I just want to note that Secretary Ross and his team framed the visit in a notable way. They said the work Pakistan has begun to do to fight terrorism and promote security is affording the U.S. and Pakistan the opportunity to strengthen and expand trade in the region and between our two countries. This explicit framing, this barter trade transaction that the administration laid out isn't particularly new. This is exactly the same kind of conversation that the Bush administration had with Pakistan after the 9-11 attacks. It's exactly the same kind of conversation that the Obama administration that had a decade ago. The question is, is this time different? And how can we make this time different, both for the U.S. and Pakistan? And I think that is the important question that we're going to grapple with today. In this moment, we're looking at a bipartisan interest in drawing down from Afghanistan. That makes this moment different. In Pakistan, we're looking at a situation where domestic security incidents, particularly the attacks in 2014 on the Karachi airport in the Peshawar school really have galvanized a different kind of domestic focus, at least on domestic security. And we face some interesting tests of Pakistan's, I will talk about Pakistan's actions against terrorism and its changing behavior. We also are in the context of a new great power competition structure. And Pakistan has been a focus of the China's Belt and Road Initiative, of China's economic emergence over the last 20 years, and particularly over these last six, as I've written about previously. So we're going to talk here today about four baskets of issues. The first is U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Where do we stand? Where are we going? The second is going to be some of those grievances, the financial action task force, counterterrorism, finance, progress, the trust-building process that has to continue for progress to happen. The third will be China and how it relates to both the U.S. relationship and the progress and change that's happening in Pakistan. And then finally, we'll talk about the business part of this, the opportunities and what is kind of in a forward looking sense, what's coming down the road. So with that introduction, I want to invite Ambassador Siddiqi up to give some opening remarks. Thank you. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. As-salamu alaikum. James, I'm very, very grateful to you for hosting this event and I'm grateful to the Carnegie Endowment for inviting me. Pakistan and the U.S. share a long history of economic cooperation. Historically, the U.S. was our largest foreign investor, a great trade partner. But over the last 20 years, that partnership has been colored by the events in Afghanistan. And that partnership has gone from being multifaceted to one that's unidimensional, that is security focused. In that, both countries have failed to look at opportunities together. And I think we're at this moment in time where both the U.S. government and the Pakistani government recognize that we must seize this moment and move forward and build a partnership that is broad and based on business. So I'd like to begin by speaking about the Pakistani business environment. And I will tell you three themes that are big themes and there's lots of opportunity within those themes. The first is that Pakistan has great openness to foreign investment. The best example of this, I would say, is our telecommunications industry. I think you will agree that telecoms is in any country a strategic sector. It's one where your communication networks and the data on that communication networks flows. And most countries would be quite hesitant to look at the telecom sector and invite a significant amount of foreign participation. But in Pakistan, it's quite the opposite. We have four mobile phone carriers. All four are foreign-owned and operated. The operators are telenoor with 44 million customers in Pakistan. I'd like to say that Norway has five and a half million people and their phone company has 44 million customers in Pakistan. China Mobile, Veon, the Russian-owned group, and I'm missing one. But there are four, sorry, at least a lot of the UAE, which obviously is the UAE's national phone company. At least a lot runs Pakistan's national phone company with 26% of the equity with 52% of the votes. So all four telecom networks are controlled and run by foreign operators. As a result of this, the Pakistani consumer has some of the lowest telecom calling rates in the world. So the government took a decision that we want competition, we want an open market, and we want our consumers to have the best possible service. And that served us well. But for this audience, I think it would be hard to find many countries that have a strategic sector like telecommunications, which has the entire sector run by foreign companies. The second thing I would speak about is incentives for new investment. Pakistan has undertaken a broad incentive program for new investments. So new investments in special economic zones, for example, can receive up to a 10-year income tax holiday. Exporters in general, whether they're in a special economic zone or not, including existing exporters, pay 0% income tax. They pay a tiny turnover tax, so they have some minimal tax that they have to pay, but there's zero income tax. The government is also able to grant significant import duty concessions where a case can be made that the end product will be exported, or it's valuable for that investment. So we are quite flexible in how we structure these new investments. So I think that is a great openness and attraction for new investors. The third thing I would say as an overarching theme is the improvement in the business environment. As you may know, Pakistan jumped 28 places in one year in the ease of doing business ranking of the World Bank. Ease of doing business rankings, as you would know, are relative rankings, which means in the past, we were improving each year, but other countries were improving more than us. So in one year to jump 28 places means there was a concerted whole-of-government approach under which many departments of government collaborated to change rules and procedures so that business can be implemented much easier. And I think you would agree between all of these things that the investment case, the macro case, is an attractive case for Pakistan. Then I will speak about some stories, some stories that are also themes within these big macro ideas, which lead to lots of investment opportunity. And the first story I will tell you is the story of China in Pakistan. As a consequence of CPEC, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the entire infrastructure system of Pakistan has been dramatically upgraded in terms of power plants, road, and in the future rail. CPEC is not our only infrastructure program. Alongside CPEC, the government and the Pakistani private sector have been investing tremendous amounts of capital. So the power plants that are built under CPEC, almost an equivalent amount of power, has been invested into and created other than CPEC. So our infrastructure between CPEC and our own efforts has grown dramatically. Contrary to popular thought, CPEC has many opportunities for non-Chinese and non-Pakistani companies. There are actually several CPEC power plants where foreign investors, other than Pakistan or China, have participated. A Qatari investment group, for example, is a 49% shareholder in a $2 billion CPEC-backed power station. The IFC, part of the World Bank, has collaborated with China Three Gorges Corporation for a series of renewable energy projects that are within CPEC. And even within construction contracts and subcontracting, not just Pakistani companies, but foreign companies have benefited from those contracts. So there is a broad-based participation. The most interesting thing I would say with regard to the US is that in one CPEC-backed power plant, which is a coal-fired power station, the Pakistani joint venture partner in that project was able to convince SinoShore, the Chinese export credit agency, to allow the purchase of the core equipment from GE, arguing that GE has the best technology for that kind of coal. I think, again, one would be hard-pressed to find an export credit program where money from one government is used for the core equipment from another country. And we were able to successfully make that case, and that power plant is now operational with machinery from GE. Within the China theme, there's one last thing I would say, which is the free trade agreement between Pakistan and China, whose second iteration has just become effective on the 1st of January 2020. Like many countries, our trade was not balanced with China, and Pakistan has asked for that second iteration to include a large number of goods which can be exported from Pakistan if they manufacture in Pakistan to China at zero or very low tariffs. Now, this is quite significant. It means that companies, including from the US, who currently export to China and pay tariffs, could produce in Pakistan, supply our domestic market, which is a sizable market, and export their surplus to China at reduced or zero tariffs. And this is also quite significant in the context of the overall relationship between Pakistan and China, where we were able to go and negotiate a change to an improvement to our FDA. So I think this is quite a significant development, and many countries, companies from many countries today, are looking at our FDA and examining which products they could produce for the Pakistani market and export to China. And as I mentioned to you, exporting companies from Pakistan don't pay any income tax. So it's very, very attractive. Everything flows to your bottom line. The second story I would share with you is the energy story. And I think I would use the example of Turkey in this case. As you would know, Turkey is a horizontal country that links the energy resources of the Caspian and Russia on one side to the demand markets of Europe. And as those pipelines flow through Turkey, Turkey gets access to abundant energy for itself and enormous amounts of transit fees for the energy it's transporting. Well, I would argue that Pakistan is the same situation but vertical, where we have the energy demand centers of China and India on one side and the energy supply markets of the Middle East as well as the Caspian that would flow through Afghanistan. Energy from the Hormuz from the Middle East has to flow through the Straits of Hormuz to the Straits of Malacca to Shanghai. And then from Shanghai, if it has to go to Western China, it has to move all the way inland into Western China. The easy route for this is for this energy to end up in Pakistan and be transported to Western China going north. That's a huge saving in logistics and cost. And I think that is the natural course of much of Western China's energy needs to be supplied through Pakistan. As you would know, there are gas pipelines being planned from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The TAPI pipeline, the TAPI pipeline is quite at an advanced stage with some of the funding now being committed. And we expect that this pipeline project, there are many, but this is the most advanced one. We expect this one will be delivered and that will provide cheap electricity and because there's an electricity line with the gas pipeline, cheap electricity and cheap natural gas to Pakistan and the adjoining countries. Beyond the energy story is the tourism story. Pakistan is home to ancient civilizations dating back 5000 years. Our country is a base for part of the Buddhist religion and a significant part of the Sikh religion. You may be familiar that Pakistan opened up the Kartarpur Corridor so that Sikh pilgrims from India could come and worship in Pakistan at the border. But the religion story, the ancient civilization story is not the only tourism story. There's a lot of skiing in Pakistan which is developing rapidly. There's enormous amounts of natural beauty. There are palaces and castles and forts that have been restored. So we expect that there will be approximately a 40% growth in our tourism revenue numbers over the next four years. That's the government's goal. So about 10% per year for the next four years, trying to capitalize on all of this tourism improvement. And then there's the technology story. Pakistan is the fourth largest freelance software market in the world. We export billions of dollars of software from individuals who take on contracts from global companies. Karim, the ride-hailing business that was a regional ride-hailing business, was founded by a Pakistani who led it. They based the business out of Dubai because it was a regional company. And you may be familiar with Karim being acquired by Uber recently for $3.1 billion. But that's not the only technology acquisition. And financial from China has invested as a minority shareholder in telenoor's payments business, which is the country's leader. And the Raaz, the largest e-commerce company in Pakistan, was acquired by Alibaba. So between all of these tech giants investing capital, I think the world should take notice of what's happening in technology in Pakistan. And finally, it's the reform story. The reform story is a story that is about the IMF program. And I think we'll speak more about it going forward. But before we get into that, it's first a story of reform within our government, which has led to jumping 20th places in the ease of doing business ranking. And beyond that whole of government approach with which we improved our ease of business ranking and hope we hope to continue to improve it, I think that is one of the most significant developments happening in Pakistan today. The IMF program is a path to economic stabilization. And while that path in any country would not be popular, Pakistan is committed to it. Pakistan is committed to the documentation of the economy to improve tax collection and to have prudent fiscal management. We're also committed to growing our exports so that our economy is export-led rather than import-led. In sum, we have a strong story to tell, but we need your help and guidance to tell it, to shift this narrative from one of security to one of partnership based on economics that is profitable for both parties, for both Pakistan and the United States. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. So as I said earlier, we're going to start on the US-Pakistan relationship in Q&A. We'll try to do this for 15 or 20 minutes and then leave lots of time for audience questions within our allotted time today. I also wanted to say one more thing, and that was I wanted to credit Megan Maxwell with organizing and doing all of the leg work and really being the muscle behind this whole operation. So thank you very much, Megan. That was part of my opening, but I really appreciate all your help and thanks for making this possible. So to get started, I really appreciate your conversation about shifting the framing of the relationship that too often, and I think for understandable reasons, over the last, over the history of this relationship, US-Pakistan relationship, of relations have a security frame. You talk about shifting to an economic frame. That was also what Secretary Ross was talking about last week. I guess, what's that look like? What's the future of this, you know, let's say in the next year, what do you want to see in this relationship to kind of indicate and for markets to see that this trajectory is shifting? I think do things. Before I get into the two things, let me just acknowledge that, you know, the Department of Commerce, Secretary Ross has teamed. They've done tremendous amount of work, growth in trade. Pakistan has become over the last four years a major buyer of American soybeans. There are a lot of other products that we could buy from the US. So we're working out how we can grow trade dramatically on our side and also on the US side for us to look for a little bit more market access for our products. So I think over the near term, we would look to grow trade numbers. And on the investment side, of course, the US economy is not structured like certain other countries. Saudi Arabia, for example, has announced that they would invest $20 billion into Pakistan, but the government is able to direct that because they own businesses. The US economy is not structured that way. It's a free market completely, but there are credit options. So, you know, US exam, DFC, other US institutions that provide credit to US companies who are doing business in Pakistan, I think as that grows and we would look for that to grow, that would be a great signal to US companies to say that the US government stands behind investing in Pakistan, but also just the availability of that credit for an emerging market is quite significant where many people would take advantage of it. This is not the first time that would happen. I recall, and James, you would remember, I think this is the time when you were serving in the State Department, that Pakistan bought a large number of Boeing aircraft with ex-infinancing, our national airline did. Some years ago, there was a large DFC's former incarnation. OPIC had allocated a billion dollars for providing credit to renewable energy companies who wanted to build renewable energy plants in Pakistan, and that was a successful program. So, I think there are the precedents and the histories there. I think we would look at both trade and credit on the investment side. On the trade part of that, of course, this administration has shifted the traditional terms of our trade discourse. We're talking about reciprocal trade. You mentioned additional Pakistani purchases of US commodities. So, I mean, there's a cap on commodity progress, particularly given global volatility and, frankly, US China trade agreement and other trends. What are the other sectors? You talk about IT. You talk about manufacturing. What are the other sectors that you're looking to purchase US goods and services? Machinery imports are a major part of Pakistan's import bill, and I think we would look to buy more US machinery. That's not just power plants and turbines. There's lots of compression equipment, oil and gas equipment, etc. So, I think that's a huge sector where we could start importing from that side. I will say on the investment side, it's not just about importing US goods, but on the investment side, we would want US companies to bring their technology to Pakistan. So, one sector where there's been tremendous success with the US company has been in the corn sector. Our agricultural yields, as you would know, are not high. They're at the level of markets of our development, so not yields per acre are not as high as developed countries. But in the corn sector, an American company, which used to be called corn products from Chicago, now called Ingredion, they invested in the biggest corn processing company. And they brought in technology for farmers because they had an incentive to buy that product, the corn itself, maize in Pakistan, to buy that, so they needed more improvement in yields. So, they worked with farmers and today our yields have dramatically gone up over a 20-year period, dramatically to world-scale levels. So, I think we would look for investment from US companies that have technology, particularly in agriculture. We, as you know, are top 10 producers of wheat and rice and cotton and maize. But our yields per acre are quite low because our farming practices are old. So, I think with technology, despite having low yields per acre, we're able to feed 220 million people. With technology, we could be the bread basket of our part of the world. So, that's quite cute. I want to go on this point a little bit more because the administration and the kind of repeated frame of this barter trade kind of discussion that's happening. And I'm going to ask you whether you agree with that characterization in a second. But on the Pakistani side, when you talk about technology, we're talking about things like cold storage and freight forwarding systems. I know that Accelerate is in the room, LNG, importation and liquefaction technology. There's a lot of space, a lot of demand. And if anyone wants to sell, they should call you or the ambassador, Assad Khan or other Pakistani contacts get involved. There's quite a lot of demand in this space. So, the administration's frame, this is a barter trade kind of exchange essentially for an Afghan peace process, we hope. Do you agree with that? And how do you see that kind of characterization? Yes. I mean, I noted that in the press statement. So, I know where you're coming from. I mean, I can't speak for the US government. So, it's factual that that's what you said. But I think we would hope for a much broader partnership, not just on the economic side and not just linked to barter. I think the administration may not have meant it that way. It was in the context of the Afghan peace deal just having been signed. So, it was natural that would come out that way. But I think both sides are looking for quite a broad-based relationship, one that extends even beyond economics. We have a large number of expats in this country. We have an enormous number of doctors in this country. So, there's a people-to-people exchange, there's a cultural exchange. There's lots of different elements, education, people studying here. So, I think there are many different elements of it. And I think we would hope and I think we will see that this becomes quite broad-based as it used to be. Yeah. I agree with you. The tone of foreign policy in this administration tends to orient around these kind of transactions and be very transactional the way they talk about it. So, on the Pakistani side of this exchange, at least as the administration characterizes it. And as I said, it's kind of also consistent with how the last 20 years of the relationship have been publicly articulated. Hopes for more, but a reality of a fairly transactional baseline. So, we're not going to talk about the status of the current effort in Doha or that's not why we're here today. The big question, I think, though, is about benchmarks. And I'm going to keep coming back to this. Where do we want to be in a year? What are we looking for in five years? How do we test progress and basically mutually prove ourselves to overcome mistrust and make progress? Yeah. Like any relationship, you do need benchmarks and you do need stepping stones. I think our hard work to the extent that we were capable of to support the peace process in Afghanistan demonstrates that. We did everything that we were capable of to support that process. But it's not just that. I think you may have followed what Pakistan has been doing geopolitically to try and try and create conditions for dialogue between the US and Iran as authorized by all the parties. And Pakistan is not the only country. Other countries have also been involved. So we are taking every step and every opportunity that we are given to provide support. So that is also a stepping stone. On the economic side, again, we would hope that these trade numbers go up and we're actually talking about exact products and so on. I'm not of liberty to speak about them in public, but I think there is an actual plan we are working on on both sides to try and boost those numbers. That would also be a stepping stone. And as you know, these things are all interlinked. So if you have some geopolitical stepping stones and some economic stepping stones, then more momentum is built from both sides. I think that's an important transition point because I think the kind of interconnectivity between the economic security and political aspects of this relationship and the potential to grow it are important to note. So the next item we wanted to talk about is to go directly at one of the underlying grievances that have frustrated this relationship for a long time. And currently Pakistan is under a financial action task force gray list, which means it's subject to enhanced monitoring for its I think we can acknowledge relatively poor record or performance on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance. This is the second time Pakistan has been on the gray list. It was on the gray list seven years ago. It was one of the first countries to come off the gray list and it was the first country to kind of be put back on that enhanced monitoring list a little over a year ago now. Just two weeks ago, FADF said, and I should note for this purpose that FADF is now headed by a Chinese, a senior Chinese official said that if Pakistan doesn't make more progress against the set of actions agreed that they could be subject to additional censorship in the coming June meeting. I know the government has paid a lot of attention to this. I know that Prime Minister Khan has been particularly focused on enforcing this, on enforcing a kind of change in behavior and progress. So what are the tests? What are the benchmarks? How would you, you're speaking for the government, but what's the story that we're not paying attention to? So let me first say that we were gray listed many years ago, then came off as you noted, and then the requirements did evolve quite a bit in reaction to the war on terror globally. And yes, it's true that we were put back on, but we did comply once and we're in the process of complying again. What is that process? There is a senior member of the cabinet, a minister of state who is responsible for running the process on an intergovernmental basis. Hamad Azar, he's been running this process for the government across all agencies to make sure we comply. The process has been running now for approximately 22 months, 21, 20, 21 months, something like that. And the average time I think statistically of the data is obviously very limited. So of countries going on to the gray list and coming off is two and a half years. So while extensions are granted, this is, we are in a typical pathway to coming off the gray list. In terms of what the data is that is not commonly known, if you were to go back one year, so say January 2019, and if you were to have three columns in front of you, so just for the reference of all the audience members, there are 27 items that that FADF wants Pakistan to what is called substantially complied with. In January 2019, you would have, I think the number was one item was substantially complied, one item was somewhat complied, and 25 were very little complied with. If you fast forward to Feb 2020, which is last month, because we've just been through this process with FADF, instead of one substantial, one somewhat and 25 less so, the numbers I think are 14 substantially complied, 11 in process of partially compliance, and only two that needed a lot of work to get into those two categories. So we feel we've made significant progress, and the data tables that are monitoring the exact 27 items are demonstrating that. 14 substantial compliance is not 27, all 27, but we are well on that pathway. I gave you two data points. I think if you take two in the middle, you will see that shift gradually. Now, what have we done? One of the most important items where FADF wants us to comply is prosecutions. Now, I think everyone recognizes that prosecutions are a judicial process, i.e. the government can make law, they can enforce law and catch people, but then we hand it over to the judiciary. So it's not entirely in the government's control in that sense. However, despite that, we have, I believe, scores of successful prosecutions with almost 100% conviction rate. We have seized nearly 1,000 properties of people not just directly involved, but people that have acted as fronts or trustees or donors to these organizations. We're not only complying with the UN list, but also we have a domestic prescribed organization list under which we are catching people that have been involved in money laundering or taxed finance. The list of prosecutions extends to senior members of organizations and in a few cases the leaders of the organizations that have been successfully prosecuted and have been awarded prison sentences. So we've done a lot. Now, of course, at the base when we were graylisted, there was a lot of room for improvement, enormous amounts of room for improvement. But what I'm saying to you, the data that is not well known is on 27 items, we are more than half fully complied. I think there's no such term as fully complied, I think its substantial compliance is considered fully compliant. And a lot of it, the bulk of the remaining amount is in progress. And if you look at the numbers of what that means on those 27 items, the largest item is prosecutions under which we have made a lot of progress, acid seizures, etc. So the fact of story is a good story. Where we started was not a great place, but how we have performed and the government's attention and Prime Minister Renan Khan's attention to this matter is vast. And we are making progress continuously. The story, I like that you said it's we're making progress. The direction is important. On anything like and he money laundering, country shares and finance, or you know, robotic militancy, that directional progress is important. But if you ever relax, then you're going to reverse. And I think that's pretty clearly, I think that has happened a number of times globally. But the question is, I don't know a better way. How do we make sure to help Pakistan help you stick to this? Make sure these prosecutions continue, make sure that jail sentences are maintained. I note that, you know, just recently, the former spokesperson for the Pakistani Taliban, you know, showed up in Turkey allegedly. Masoud Azar has kind of leaked out at the bottom of the system somewhere allegedly. There are there are kind of these worrying signs from an analytical perspective that there continue to be cracks. I mean, these are these are important noted international internationally sanctioned and domestically sanctioned as you noted people. How do we how do we both maintain that direction and make sure the progress isn't reversed? I think two steps. One is is monitoring so the world can continue to help monitor, build better systems. But two, invite us to participate. So, you know, I think over the medium term Pakistan will upgrade its memberships to many of these organizations. And, you know, we have a desire to do that. So as we are compliant, then we are a participant. I think being outside and not being a participant or having a voice on the forum, you know, I think that may make countries less that's a less active in implementation. To your point of of people of profile, not being in prison, there is an investigation underway and, you know, the government's taking it very seriously. Yeah. And I there was one story that I I hope I mean, you can mention, but the story of Hopee Bank and I think the State Bank of Pakistan just issued what I think is a pretty remarkable and self-reflective analysis of this. Hopee Bank is a very large bank that was was, you know, basically it's licensed to operate in the US was revoked on these grounds two and a half years ago. And this report is pretty remarkable. But I think that kind of transparency is particularly welcome. And I think for for a sign of a sign of potential kind of change in the system. I mean, I just mentioned on that, I mean, So Hopee Bank, as you may know, is systemically the most important bank in the country, the largest bank and has operations in, I think, 26 countries. What you said was absolutely accurate. The board reacted by changing the entire management, putting in a huge compliance process, including in the US, spending an enormous amount of capital, but also really working on procedure. But it is a large bank and there is history. And you're right, the central bank did censure them afterwards. But I would say that they are working very, very hard to comply. But nevertheless, I note your point about the central bank saying this. Yeah, I mean, it's really it's unusual, I think in Pakistan and welcome that they would that the central bank, the regulators would would both take a serious look at it and highlight, you know, additional areas that I think above and beyond what what the New York Fed had previously and the Justice Department had previously highlighted. So that that was important progress. So shifting to the third subject, which is China, there's a lot of talk about about CPAC, a lot of interest in China's economic emergence in Washington, the threat of predatory state capitalism, you know, we can talk we can talk about debt traps. But my question to you is there's a lot of talk about CPAC and Chinese investment in Pakistan slowing down over the last two years. China's economy is slowing, you know, and in the current situation with the coronavirus and I think global uncertainty and volatility, you know, we would tactically expect that to happen. But what's your sense of the current state of CPAC and what should we expect going forward? Yes. So I we have not observed it slowing down. I think maybe I can describe the the context. CPAC is $50 billion in capital spend, of which approximately 30 is either fully completed or nearly completed. That 30 leads is that off the $30 billion, I think 24 is power plants. So they were the earlier projects, which we call the early harvest projects, and they were built out. So most of the infrastructure to do with energy is built out. And what's remaining is some road, some roads have been built, but some road and some rail. So what was observed was a large amount of action, lots of power plants going up. And then now it's roads and, you know, highways and rail and the rail hasn't even started, hence the hence the view that, you know, maybe it's slowing down. But that's just how it was structured. The power plants went in first because our need, we had a big shortage of electricity. Now, I can't comment on coronavirus, we are still assessing the situation as I'm sure all countries are. And it's a it's a it's tragic what's going on. And I think it's natural that that may lead to some slowdowns in general across the world down in China. For CPAC, we just completed a JCC and, you know, the process continues to move forward. That's a joint coordination. A joint coordination committee where both governments to the planning minister, planning departments of government, they work together to assess where we are in implementation and what we need to do going forward. So that process is on its own schedule. But, but of course we need to watch the coronavirus development in China and the rest of the world. But the relationship continues to be positive and trajectory good. Correct. So there's also a lot of interest in the context of China's emergence and watching how they interact in these state companies interact in third countries and as they enter markets.  You know, I think as you say, I think any analyst has to acknowledge that China's China's investment in Pakistan is very real and noticeable when you visit, particularly on the energy side. But there's no there's no you can't you can't minimize what has happened. It really has been been significant. But what's the local experience and particularly among businesses to these firms? Like in any large investment program, there are pluses and minuses. This one I would say is largely has pluses, although there are some minuses and we'll talk about that. But largely very positive. In terms of training people, so let's speak about that first. Pakistan built out under CPAC a large number of coal-fired power stations. Before this program, only 1% of total energy in Pakistan came from coal. So we did not have the expertise to build large-scale coal-fired power stations. And as a consequence, the leadership to run those plants came from China in addition to building the plants. But I can tell you from personal experience, I've been to the opening of several of the plants and at each plant, each of these coal-fired power stations, China had trained 200 or so Pakistani engineers that were taken during the construction project and trained in different elements of operation, including six months' acconments to projects in China to learn how the instrumentation works and how the turbines perform and how the maintenance has to be done. And they built the workforce and there was a transition process ongoing to hand over to them. Because I think that's a small number of jobs to run a plot. To build them requires a large number of jobs and they did transfer that knowledge of our training people. In terms of construction, of course these large projects were run, construction was by Chinese companies because the funding came from China. In the same way that the funding came from Germany, there would be German companies involved. So the construction was there, but there were many subcontractors that were Pakistani companies. These are for power plants. So there were lesser works that didn't have to do with the critical works of the turbines and for those critical foundations, etc., that were done by Pakistani companies who were given those contracts too. So there was some participation, although it is an export credit program, so it was led by and largely done by Chinese companies. I think where we have to continue to get all foreign engineering companies to comply is HSE standards, health and safety standards. And I wouldn't say any one group of companies is better than the other or worse than the other, but I think when you have a large influx of foreign companies, not just Chinese, many, many foreign companies, you need to make sure they're compliant with all your guidelines, etc. I know that in many cases that we've had perfect compliance, but there have been a few cases where we've had to push as the customer to say that you need to bring these up to rules and that has happened. But that's normal when you have 30 billion dollars of build out. There will be these frictional issues because you're mobilizing huge amounts of machinery and people and construction and roads, so that happened, but these are small issues in large construction projects. These projects were largely delivered on budget and on time, which is a great success of it. Now on the roads, there are subcontractors, several of them that are Pakistani companies for the lesser works. And for the rail, I expect there will be very few Pakistan or foreign involvement because the rail is quite a significant upgrade and we just don't have the capability. It's doubling the ML1 mainlines. It's increasing the speeds of all the trains quite significantly, both passenger and freight, and it's upgrading the signaling incredibly in a sophisticated way. So we just don't have that expertise. So we expect that will be entirely led by the Chinese side. When eventually it kind of gets their way. Yes. In the rail, to your earlier point, there was a bit of a slowdown, but now it's been accelerated back to try and make up for that. It's quite a large contract, so I can understand that. I thought you provided really helpful framing in your introduction on how American firms should think about China's role in Pakistan in flux and foreign investment and in improvement in domestic infrastructure, the provision of services. And you also talked about some interesting experiences where American firms participated in basically Chinese projects pretty centrally. That's not unusual. American firms and Chinese firms work together very closely all over the world. I think the interesting aspect of this is that there aren't actually very many cases with regard to the Belt and Road globally, where American firms I think have been centrally involved in China-backed kind of present Xi Jinping branded Belt and Road projects. Is there a path? Is there a lesson learned from that experience? How can that be replicated? I think as we think from U.S. foreign and economic policy perspective about how to interoperate more successfully with the Chinese, it's a really interesting experience. Tell us more. Yeah, it's a great question. I think this is a great case study of what collaboration could be. And I think this requires a frank conversation between the U.S. and China to say, look, this Belt and Road program, where are the opportunities to collaborate? In Pakistan's case, this was led by the Pakistani private sector, where they made that decision to ask for this from China based on the technology they wanted. They already had experience with GE in this case with the technology. Correct. They kind of knew it well. They knew it well and they felt the technology was needed for that kind of coal that we needed to, that we had in that area. But had that not been the case, there was no conversation around it to say, no proactive conversation to say, is there a possibility for collaboration? This resulted randomly because the Pakistani counterpart raised it because they needed that technology. Now, I think this, to make this a successful pathway, there needs to be a proactive conversation. Either the U.S. takes a path that Belt and Road is very competitive and we don't want to participate, which I think would be a mistake. But I think a pathway could be, because it's happening, right? So a pathway could be having an active conversation, saying, what stake could the U.S. have in this? What stake could U.S. companies have? What profit they could generate? There are places where U.S. technology would be very useful. And as you said, this collaboration between U.S. and China in many countries, it's just Belt and Road has just become this China-only brand, which is not the case in Pakistan. It's not just with that GE example I mentioned, other equity investments, other subcontractors from other countries. So I think this is a good case study. Pakistan's a great case study and this should be used for an active, proactive conversation between the U.S. and China. I think, to me, it also highlights the importance of kind of sticking to it and staying involved. I mean, I feel like, particularly among the political discourse here, we sometimes panic in the moment and say, oh, we're going to lose market share. The point is that GE stayed engaged in Pakistan, had relationships, there was broad familiarity with the product. And as a result, that was more of almost a user, a demand side, as opposed to the kind of financing side of it, a capital decision on Beijing's part. So certainly, I mean, I agree, there's a policy dialogue to be had between Washington and Beijing that's constructive about how global rules of the road, the fair business climates, et cetera. But there's also an important lesson about keeping your feelers in your fingers and your operations active in all of these countries to be opportunistic. At least that's the message I'd hope American firms would take from it. And just to speak a little bit about what I had said as an opportunity, using the Pakistan FTA and locating the China Pakistan FTA to get tariff reductions for exports to China, for American companies to locate under CPEC, special economic zones, where they get big tax breaks for being in that zone. So they would locate in that zone in a, it's not a Chinese SSE, but these are projects, SSEs were developed as a consequence of CPEC, and then export into China, perhaps in joint venture, perhaps by themselves. That would be a great building block also. I think that's really a useful transition to the last subject that we'll talk about. And I'm going to ask one or two questions, but think about your questions because I'm coming to the audience next. So in terms of business opportunities to that point, the, there's a lot of, you know, in the conversation between US and China on trade, trade diversion, investment diversion, and relocation, I think is a hot topic. How does Pakistan position itself in that conversation? I'll just say that being on conference calls and having conversations with suppliers and purchasers of goods, I haven't really heard much about Pakistan in that you're a lot of Vietnam, you're a lot about, you know, Indonesia, you're a lot about India or Bangladesh on the textile side. How does Pakistan assert itself in that conversation? So your framing is entirely accurate. We have not been as active as a number of East Asian countries who were able to capture this relocation much better than us. Pakistan is looking at it quite seriously now. We want to attract Chinese companies to manufacture in Pakistan for exports to the world. We want to attract world companies to export to China, but we just have not been as proactive as East Asian countries. So there's a lot of work to be done. The government is aware and we're encouraging our private sector to push very hard. At the moment, our textile industry is running at 100 percent capacity. As you would know, we devalued our currency significantly. And I think about two months ago, we reached full output. And that's not exports to China, it's to the whole world. But we are running at full output. So it's an urgent need for capital investments that the government has gone ahead and provided incentives that are specific to the textile industry and a few other exporting industries to get them to make a significant capital investment. Simultaneously, that capital investment will require customers and that's where your point comes in, which is relocation is a great way to get customers. So there's more work to be done on that side from our side and we are behind. On the investment side, we are working pretty actively with industry. Some of these supply chains can be quite elastic, but I mean relocation of services takes a lot of time. So the point about textiles is very interesting. It's been 20 years since we've done it from security, electricity availability. It has been an output level like it's been at recently, which is progress and important. But U.S. companies, there's skilled labor and experience to be leveraged there in the textile space. So we talked earlier about sectors a little bit. And you mentioned, and the last question I'll ask is about the market access conversation. You mentioned desire for greater market access with U.S. Understand you don't want to talk about the current conversations that are happening. I'll be very transparent. I've been through these conversations before, colored me skeptical. But what is it that, from a priority perspective, what is the top interest when Pakistan looks at the U.S. market and desires more market access? Today, Pakistan has more market access than India or Bangladesh as much market access as Vietnam to the U.S., just looking at GSP and existing trade agreements. What is the top priority? Why is it that tariff relief really is the tool to meet that need? So as you noted, because of current discussions, I'm not going to go into detail, but I will answer in generality. Pakistan historically is asked for more market access for textile because that's an industry we manufacture efficiently, large-scale output. We also import a enormous amount of U.S. cotton. If I'm not mistaken, I think we buy 9% of U.S. cotton exports to Fortissa Plant, be a major cotton producer, but our downstream industry is significantly larger, so we import U.S. cotton. So there's a really good argument to say we're buying American cotton, we're selling the goods back to the U.S., we should be given more access on that front. Pakistan is like the sixth largest cotton producer in the world. And the U.S., I believe, is larger than that still. And Pakistan buys from the U.S. to supplement its own. So I think we've asked for that, and that's been always been caught up in the U.S. textile industry reacting by saying, well, actually, we don't want more product that is competitive to ours. The reality is that many of the categories of textile products we produce are not the ones that the U.S. industry is producing. So I think that that case has not been made effectively in the past, so I think we would like very much for that case to be looked at also where a large number of products we make, and we can focus on those for further export to the U.S., are not competitive to U.S. the kinds of cotton products the U.S. makes. So I'll leave it at that if you can permit me. Okay, so we're ready for audience questions. We're right on time so far, so we have about 20 minutes. So I'm going to start up here in the front on the right. And sorry, we have a microphone that will circulate, so please stand up, introduce yourself, and keep to a question. My name is Christine. I work with the Cindy American Political Action Committee. And my question is, in recent years, there's been a significant increase in discrimination against the Cindy Hindus, Cindy Christians, and Cindy Sikhs. What can be done to stop Pakistan from these discriminations against the Cindy people in the workforce? You can ask Cindy. As James noted, I'm ethnically Cindy. So I think discrimination is a universal problem, not just for Cindy's, but for people, other communities in Pakistan, the whole world, there's discrimination everywhere. And how is that tackled by law? So this is a real problem. I'm acknowledging what you're saying. But I think there is law. There is enforcement. One can argue there needs to be more enforcement. In some cases, when there's not enough enforcement, our courts themselves have taken notice and accelerated this process. So all of those things have happened. I recognize the issue. The government's aware and the courts are aware and they take it up significantly. It's not dealt with completely. But like many other discrimination issues, we are dealing with it. So we're going to work our way up this side and then we'll come back down this side. So in the middle here. Hello, Ambassador. So good to see you again. Two days ago, I asked you about, or you as a Cindy, about thousands of enforced disappearances that are happening in Sind. And you looked me in the eyes and you told me that number is not thousands, but actually hundreds. So I just want to name that the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, since as a report in November 2018 has actually received about 5,290 cases of enforced disappearances, and about 2,000 or more of those are in Sind and unsolved. So my question to you is, will you continue to trivialize the enforced disappearances of Cindy people or support your people and call for their release as a member of the government? So the number we were discussing two days ago was court data and cases. And of course, complaints would exceed that number, but I'm not trivializing the numbers at all. What I'm saying, and the previous question was also along the same lines is that we have a court procedure. The courts have taken it up. They have called in law enforcement officers and they have worked on this significantly. And it's an issue the government is aware of, and we are pushing it. And the courts themselves, and if you, since you have this data, if you would look up the courts, there are a large number of court cases that the courts have looked at, not just for Sind, but other provinces also. So we are completely aware and not trivializing it at all. But this is one of many national issues that the courts are responsible for prosecuting and finding. And they've been doing that. Okay, so we'll go to the next question and hopefully have one on either the US-Pakistan relationship or counterterrorism finance or the China relationship or US business economic relations. So if we can go to the back here. Right. Thank you, sir. This is Jhansi Bali from the Airway News TV Pakistan. Sir, the principal deputy assistant, Ms. Alice Wells, a few weeks ago expressed concerns over CPAC or the foreign investments in CPAC. What are those concerns? What are the part of the discussion where Secretary-Covner visited Pakistan? And would you like to say something in response of these concerns? So I can't discuss specifics of what we discussed with the US government. I can address your question. First, let me say that Ambassador Wells is someone I respect tremendously and I've had a lot of interaction with her when I was serving here in Washington. She's a phenomenal diplomat. I would say that on the criticisms of CPAC, some of the data was dated. For example, one of the criticisms was that a Chinese company that had been blacklisted was awarded a contract under CPAC. That company indeed was blacklisted, but they came off the blacklist before we awarded the contract and after we awarded the contract. So I think it came off the blacklist in 2015. We awarded the contract in 2016. So at that time, they were fully compliant. And I think it was a World Bank blacklist that comment was referring to. And then in 2018, the Asian Development Bank gave that same company a contract in Nepal, I think. So I think that data may have been corrected one point in time, but when Pakistan got involved in awarding that contract, for example, they were fully in compliance and other third parties like the ADB have acknowledged that by awarding the same company a contract. So I think there were criticisms. There are criticisms in Washington. Some may be correct, many are not. And I would just say that a lot of the CPAC data from our side is public. It's on the websites of the various government agencies that are involved in the process. So for power plants, which I mentioned is 60% of CPAC is power plants. For power plants, all that data is on the NEPRA website, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority, including the loans, the lenders, the insurance, the rates of interest, the terms of immortalization, the kind of equipment, the quality of that equipment, the cost of that equipment that goes through a public hearing process. So we've been quite transparent. But wherever there have been criticisms, we've done our best to address them. We're happy to take on more. Not every criticism relates to Pakistan, but nevertheless, to the extent that it's a CPAC criticism, it's our obligation to answer. I would say that a lot of the data is in the public domain. We've made an effort to put more data in the public domain. But many of those criticisms I think we have good responses to. As an analyst and kind of looking at the Belt and Road and Chinese investment comparatively, one of the interesting features of the Pakistani system is that in the energy sector, which is about 70 something percent of the total investment so far, there is a publication process. I just note that a lot of that stuff is not really searchable. Progress has been made to make it a little easier to use. The data exists in the government and you could argue it's in the public domain. But much like a lot of systems, it's very hard to find and locate, which feeds the transparency concern. But I do think in the transportation, which you talk about, the past is energy. The future is transportation. In the transportation sector, there's not a lot of public domain information as an analyst. So I hope the government can, as a comment, I hope the government can fix that information availability question. So we'll go to Dana next. Thanks very much, Ambassador, for that very sweeping discussion here. There's a lot of questions that I've got, but let me see if I can focus it to do very specific practical business-oriented things. You mentioned several times the existing China-Pakistan FTA and some sort of expansion of that. One of the most important things for any of us that look at FTAs and real business interests is the rules of origin. Can you give us a sense about how much has to be Pakistan content before it can go into China duty-free? So that's one question. The other one, as you've also mentioned a couple of times in James as well, about the interest of world business and looking at redeploying their supply chains out of China. Is there some reason why Pakistan has not undertaken a really systematic review of what could be moved out, not only because of the trade concerns, but not regrettably the coronavirus, but also the opportunities that the recent withdrawal of GSP from Turkey and still from India might also be able to mean for Pakistan? So I'm not familiar with the exact content percentage. I think it is a value addition. I want to say of 35 percent, but don't hold me to that because I just want to remember what's in the new FTA, the actual number. Oh, I'm sorry, 65 percent. 35 can be non-origin, but don't hold me to that. But I can read that up and get you the data. On your comment about relocation, I think it's a very valid thought that Turkey and India have given space, haven't made to give space by exiting the GSP program. Pakistan is not entirely competitive in many of the products they work. So we have looked at it. There's a few gains to be made, but many of the products they were in, we just don't make those products. Now, of course, there's an opportunity for us to get competitive on those, but that's a longer cycle. So we have looked at it, and our initial analysis was that there's more work to be done. It's more longer term because we need to produce those goods, which the countries were quite competitive in. In terms of relocation itself, this is, and the government advising the private sector what to do. We have had some conversations with the private sector, but since the private sector was getting to full output, taking advantage of all the electricity that's now available, their priorities were to maximize the industrial capacity as it stands today. And only now are they looking at where we can be in the relocation chain. So it's led by the private sector. The government does give feedback to them, but they had other priorities, and that's one of the reasons why we think other countries have surpassed us in East Asia in capitalizing on that. They had little capacity. They had a bigger trade relationship with China, so they were able to capitalize on the supply chains much faster. Sorry. Can we come up here to the front? A question about travel advisory for Pakistan is not attracting the American investors. What steps are being taken by Pakistan? This is an important issue. We have raised it with the U.S. government on many forums. Our embassy and ambassador here are working quite actively on it with the U.S. government. It's an ever-present issue, because you're right. Many U.S. companies limit travel to countries that have travel advisories. And the U.S. government has been considering it. We've been pushing it. We understand where they're coming from, and we've been providing them data to demonstrate that Pakistan's security situation in the last six or seven years has improved dramatically. So it's a slow process. We're working very hard with the U.S. government, and we hope that there can be some improvement here. So we'll go with this gentleman right here in the middle. Sorry. So there are two right next to each other. We'll go. Ambassador, thanks for the presentation. My name is Akhil Berry. I'm from the Eurasia Group. I had two quick questions. One, could you talk a little bit about the government's privatization agenda? I know that two power plants are up for sale, have attracted a lot of investor interest. Could you talk a little bit more about what other privatization opportunities there are? Second, on the revenue generation side, of course, with the IMF program, one of the key components is kind of the FPR needs to continue to raise revenue and has so far not been so successful. How do you balance kind of the short-term revenue deficit in Pakistan with kind of like the long-term investment needs of a sector? For example, telecom, which needs to invest in 5G, it needs to invest in telecom infrastructure, yet at the same time needs to kind of look to telecom licenses to kind of help fill the government's coffers. Thanks. So let's speak about the tax side first. On the tax, it's true we're behind on our numbers with the IMF. The IMF program is done. IMF has said that we have performed well on most things. One of the things we have less performance on is the tax number. So there is a pressure on the government to deliver that. We are trying not to raise that tax number by increasing the rate of tax. So we're not doing that. We're trying to raise that within the system. And that's the reason why we are so far behind. If we had just upped the tax rates, we would have met the numbers. And we recognize the point you're making. The telecom industry is a major contributor to tax. They have just paid last year for additional spectrum that you may be aware of. And we are cognizant of their investment needs. So we work very closely with the four mobile companies. One of them owns, as you may know, the fixed line operator also. And we are making sure that the tax burden doesn't increase. But through greater subscription numbers, higher value added services, more broadband, the tax revenue increases automatically. So that's on the tax. On privatization, the government just cleared yesterday, or perhaps day before, 33 entities for privatization. Off the top of my head, I don't have the whole list. But I think one that comes to mind that was in process is a bank called SME Bank. There are certain hospitality properties that are in that portfolio. So those are there also. And the privatization program is now being pushed quite actively. Great. If we could go to Bob Eichord, who's right in the middle here. Great to see you, Bob. Thank you, Ambassador. Bob Eichord from the Atlantic Council, with the gym. Is that state? On Pakistan, was first in Pakistan working on energy with USAID in 1980. I've seen a lot of changes over the years. But one persistent problem is this issue of the financial viability of the power sector. The so-called circular debt, quasi-physical deficits. And the problem is when you start borrowing 24 billion dollars from the Chinese, you're going to be able to pay them back. So I bring us up to date, please, on sort of how the IMF program to improve revenues and reduce some of that debt is moving. And this sort of relates to I've always been a proponent saying in some of the key cities like Lahore, there's no reason why you can't privatize the distribution companies and try to get more investment to go in to improve their operations, etc. And so I think that's enough. So I'll pick it up from this end of the question. Your observation is accurate, entirely accurate. And circular debt for us is a big problem. It's been highlighted by IMF and World Bank and a number of other actors. We are painfully aware of it. The number continues to increase. The rate at which it's increasing, we're managing to slow down. But it is increasing, absolutely. Now, what does that mean? That means there's a long-term solution and there's a shorter term thing that we have to do, which is deal with the problem. But the long-term solution, well, let me deal with the other side first. The shorter term, the medium-term solution, is to privatize the discos exactly as you said. You would know that one distribution company was privatized, the Karachi City distribution company. That has been a great success story going from a loss, if I remember, at the time of privatization about 10 years ago, of loss of about $200 million a year to a profit of $200 million a year. And that's been a great success story. It's been unfortunate that we haven't privatized the rest of the discos because the problem in the end is there, which is that the distribution losses and theft on one side and the lack of billing, a lack of collecting the bills, collect about 80% and we lose 15% of the energy in the distribution system, lose and quit it. So that combination, that grows that whole. So I think that you mentioned Lahore, that I believe a profitable distribution company, Feslaabad, Islamabad, these are profitable discos. We have some that are losing money. I would argue that I think you might agree that the profitable ones are earning much less than their potential. And in the end, this is not for the government to run. So it's on our agenda to privatize these and that is the ever-present issue. To your earlier part of the question on circular debt itself, the number continues to increase. I believe it's 1.9 trillion rupees at the moment, which is a significant rapid pace of growth. And I think the government is looking at options on how to cap that number issue debt one time, deal with the payments that we have not made to certain power plants that are the high-cost power plants. And when we don't pay in time, as you would remember, Pakistan has a very strong contract structure for IPPs. So the government is obliged to pay a liquidated damages that are in excess of their borrowing rates. So these power plants continue to borrow because they have a sovereign payable against that and then continue to pay dividends, et cetera. And we have to pay even more than that to them for not performing. So we're trying to deal with it on multiple fronts with the IPPs, with the transmission system and with those distribution companies. But in the end, this becomes a problem where the distribution companies have to be sold. Now to your point about taking on a lot of debt from China for power plants, how do we repay? In the end, these power plants have to sell that electricity. And the viable way to repay is if there are enough buyers of that electricity. The government is the obliged buyer, but in the end, the government needs to provide the electricity to others. And that's why we need industrialization, greater industrialization. And we're dealing with that with these special economic zones, with a large amount of Chinese investment that we expect to come in. Many Chinese companies have approached us, but they're not exclusive to Chinese companies. They're open to everybody. In fact, our special economic zone law says that anybody that has 50 acres of land or more can request to be declared in special economic zone and get the same tax benefits and other benefits. So it's a pretty open system, but we've provided the incentives for industrialization now that our infrastructure, our power, our roads, and in the future rail will be much more efficient. The plan is for getting industrialization, those companies will pay taxes, buy this electricity, and the system will work. Now it's a chicken and egg problem. You can't tell companies to come and invest if you can't provide them the infrastructure and the energy. So we had to solve that problem first, which is what we've done. But the hope is that, and the plan is that these SCCs are going to deliver for us. Okay, so we'll take one more question and then we'll wrap up. So we'll take this gentleman right in the booth. Ambassador, thanks for joining us today. I'm Ben Cushman with MetLife, a global insurance company. And as you know, MetLife subsidiaries have operated in Pakistan for decades, going back to the 1950s. You were talking about the business climate earlier and improvements in the World Bank doing business indicators, which is fantastic. I think we know the business climate in Pakistan is very different than the U.S. So I guess my question is, when you're reaching out to investors, potential investors in Pakistan, what kind of assurances can you give them that if they run into some conflicts, some bureaucratic obstacles or red tape, for example, that they have a partner in the government of Pakistan who can kind of help them along the way? Many emerging markets around the world have investment coordinating committees or one-stop-shop offices where advisors from the government can help bring ministries together to solve problems that the foreign investors are facing. Thank you. So we have a Board of Investment, which as you would know is the ministry responsible for inward investment, but also for licensing special economic zones and dealing with investor complaints and grievances. So that is, if I were to use that term one-stop-shop. I know that in many cases the issues have been more complex than the Board of Investment. So there are the departments of government involved, the central bank, the finance ministry, other regulators that are independent of the structure and the framework of the ministries. And you know, some of us get involved in helping resolve those problems. I think you're familiar with one of them. So we do try and provide coverage where the individual ministry needs a lot of coordination. So there are people, I think in general, you would find the Pakistani government incredibly accessible. So ministers, senior people in government are quite accessible. So one can reach out to them. I remember dealing with a significant, my first job in government two and a half years ago, with a significant tax issue between our tax authorities and an entire industry sector. And it was significant dispute. And there was no exact mechanism for dealing with the whole industry. There were mechanisms for dealing with individual companies. But we were able to set up a mechanism for the tax authority and all the industry participants to talk on the same forum to solve that issue. And that made all the progress that was needed. So why there is no exact mechanism? Because some issues are more complex than just having a coordinating agency. They may have a point of law. They may have a point of law interpretation. A department of government may have one legal opinion and the investor may have a different one on the same matter. And they're stuck there. So we're able to try and facilitate that by creating some sort of bridge if one reaches out to more senior people in government. Okay. Well, thank you all for joining us. And thank you to Ambassador Siddiqui. And with that, we'll wrap up. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. That's great.


Welcome to the May episode of In the World of Winooski. I am your host, Mayor Christine Lott, and today I have two guests joining me. With us from the Burlington International Airport are Nick Longo, Deputy Director of Aviation Administration, and Diane Carter of the Jones Pain Group. They are here to share information with us about the newly released updated noise exposure map for the Burlington International Airport, ahead of a public meeting that will occur tomorrow at the airport, and another one that will occur on Thursday right in Winooski at the O'Brien Center. So I'd like to say welcome to you, Nick and Diane. I really appreciate you joining us today to inform us of this complicated, long-term process that residents in Winooski are looking forward to hearing about. I think it would be good to start with just some background and basics on what is the noise exposure map, why is it being updated, what is this bigger process that we are looking at here. Well, thank you very much, Mayor, for having us on board. I think it is important because, as you mentioned, of the complexities behind this program, and we want to make it as simple as possible so that you as a homeowner within Winooski and many of the municipalities surrounding the airport understand what the noise exposure map means, why the airport moves down that path. But then the second half of the program is, if I'm in that program as a homeowner, what are the next steps for me and what are the programs behind that? I think we have some slides for you today to kind of go through that, and these are going to be available at both public meetings in a poster board, as well as live on our website, btvsound.com, so your residents can directly access them. What you're looking at here is really the overall schedule of our noise exposure map. That yellow square there is just about where we are in the overall process, and that is the draft noise exposure map document for you, the audience's review and public comment. Today it is on our website, btvsound.com, and you can access the full document as well as the noise exposure map picture, the map itself, rather. So what happens here is we have to open this public comment period for approximately 30 days, and we receive comments both from you as municipality and leadership of that municipality, as well as the general public on the actual document and the maps themselves. We'll compile that, we'll answer some of those questions, and then what we do is submit that to the Federal Aviation Administration or the FAA for their review, and they accept those maps. Really the next step after that comes what happens with the map and what happens within the area of the map. I think that the next slide really goes into the overall perspective, and Diane will walk us through what is a Part 150 study. Thanks, Nick. So a Part 150 study is a federally funded program that allows communities to make land use planning decisions. It identifies noise exposure from aircraft noise, and then it puts together a program of how to mitigate that noise once it's been identified. It's a two-step process that starts with the noise exposure map itself, which is a technical document that depicts the noise in a graphical format, and that's where we're at today. We've finished up the map, it's here for everyone to see, and then we'll go into the noise mitigation planning process later this summer. And as I've said, the noise exposure map is two maps. Actually, it's the current year, which is 2018, and then a five-year forecast, which will be 2023. And in terms of looking at noise mitigation areas, we'll be looking at the 2023 map as the affected area. So what is a noise contour? This is the lines that go around the map that explain what the noise level is. It's an average annual day that is encompassing all of the aircraft operations, both general aviation, military and commercial, and there's a 10-decibel penalty for nighttime operations from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. That counts the equivalent of 10 aircraft for every departure after 10 p.m. or every arrival after 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. in the morning. This is the metric that the FAA requires us to use. It's used by all the airports across the country, and so it's a way for everybody to look at the noise in the same type of way. So it's an average of the noise that you're hearing throughout the day. There's going to be peaks and quiet times. Correct. And then you said in the nighttime there's sort of a penalty to recognize that that's more disturbing than the same level of noise in the daytime. Exactly. Okay. And a good way to picture it for DNL is if you turn on your faucet and you put a bucket under your faucet all day long for a year, at the end of the year, whatever water you had in that bucket, you divided it by 365 glasses, that would be the noise contour. That would be the average. So some days you do more dishes, some days you do less. It's that same type of principle. Okay. So the noise compatibility program is the piece of it that looks at people who are within that noise contour and it determines what programs can be offered to help mitigate that noise. It could be things like sound insulation or assistance with sale of a home and we'll be talking more about that a little bit later. And Mayor, this is probably the more important piece of this project. While the map defines those areas, those geographic areas that may be eligible for one of these programs, the noise compatibility program is the document that details what each program is. And as Diane and I talk about all the time, we want a toolbox that has many tools in it so that as a homeowner you have these tools that you can choose from that best fits your property or your unique circumstance. And that's what a noise compatibility program really details. What works for you? Is it sound insulation or is it one of the other programs that we'll go through in just a moment? And that's why it's so important that, one, the maps are produced, but two, what do we do within those contour areas, whether it's for Winooski, South Burlington, or Williston? Yeah, so we're going to see this map that's going to tell us who would qualify for noise compatibility programming. And then after that is determined, we move into the stage of actually sorting out what that program is, people being able to apply, which I think we'll talk about a little bit further out in this program. Yeah, the map is a means to get federal funding. So first you have to identify it, then it allows the airport to apply for the funds to do the mitigation. So some of the potential land use measures is sound insulation. I think this is something that we see a lot of interest in from the communities around the airport. It's when the airport will come in, they'll do a test of the home to determine the interior noise level, and then they'll install new windows and doors that are acoustically made to reduce your interior noise level. You can't do anything about the outside or your backyard, but we can always make it quieter when you're in the house and you don't have to turn up your TV or ask someone to hold on while you're on the phone. It also could include ventilation in terms of fresh air or central air conditioning if you don't have it. It may include attic insulation or some other types of treatments to make sure we can reduce that interior noise level. It's a long process. From the initial time we come to a house to do the initial assessment until the construction happens. It's about a 12- to 18-month process because it depends on grant cycles with the FAA. But the actual construction on the house takes about 30 days, so it's 10 days from start to finish to get 90% of everything in, everything operational, and then another 20 days to do all the inspections, close the permits, tidy up all the work and make sure that everything's working. And we find this to be a very positive program. Homeowners like it, it adds a lot of value to their home. It's no cost to them. All of those costs are paid by the airport and by the grant, so it improves their home without there being a financial impact to homeowners for sound insulation. The other two programs that we're looking at are sales assistants. All of these programs, I should say, are developed to keep the homes residential, keep the area residential. The airport is not looking to do any more purchasing of properties and tearing them down and clearing the land. So we're wanting to keep the neighborhoods, keep the communities intact. And so sales assistants allow people who want to relocate the ability to do so, and the house stays in the neighborhood. The homeowner sells their home on the open market to a third party, and if there is not an offer that is equivalent to the appraised value, then the airport would make up that difference. The other option that we look at is purchase assurance, and that is where the airport will just come in and buy the home at the appraised value, and then sound insulate it and resell it on the market. So it always remains residential and keeps that neighborhood intact. I think you make an important point there about a community value that we have. You know, Winooski in the area has a lot of more affordable housing than some of the surrounding county. And so it's really important to us that we have these options to keep people in their homes, keep that housing stock available, that we're not looking at a situation where we'd be demolishing any homes. Yeah, and we were very adamant with you and your staff, as well as the other municipalities' staff and leadership to stop the acquisition program. We heard loud and clear from municipal leadership, from Burlington and Winooski-Wilson, South Burlington, that that no longer was a viable option moving into the future. That program has ended. Like Diane was saying, we no longer will be purchasing any more houses for the removal of the building and start offering some of these programs. And it's important to note, too, that these programs were and have been discussed over the last year, about a year, as part of the airport's technical advisory committee for this noise compatibility program. A lot of acronyms out there, but the technical advisory committee is made up of municipal leadership that really have stakeholders and community members and residents within these areas that truly are part of this project with us. So that's why it's so important that we did have these discussions, and we'll continue to have these discussions on what best fits the community and keeping and remaining this affordable housing stock into the future. And our own city manager has a seat to help advocate for Winooski and what we would like to see. So when we talk about the history of the Part 150 program, it's been at the airport for quite a long time. In fact, all the way when the Part 150 started with the FAA back in the 80s, the airport's first initiative with the Part 150 program was really back in 2008 when we completed the first noise compatibility programs. That's the program that defined purchasing and removal of the house. So that's why we're updating that program. That's why this new noise compatibility program is being edited now and will be submitted later in 2019 to adjust for the programs we just mentioned, the sales assistance, purchase assurance, and sound insulation. In 2015, just a few years ago, we did produce our last noise exposure map. That map is available for viewing and in fact, it's available within this new document that we have just so folks can compare what it used to look like in 2015 with the new maps defined this year and the future forecast for 2023. Like I said, we have been working on the NCP updates for some time. We anticipate that we submit those NCP updates to the FAA later in 2019 as well as our noise exposure map which is defined right there. That picture on the right hand side is probably tough for viewers to see but that is available at BTVsound.com that is part of the overall noise exposure map documentation right there on the homepage of BTVsound.com and what that does is it details the estimated residential population as well as the dwelling units within each community and within each contour area. So we talk a lot about noise and sound with airports and we wanted to just familiarize people with terminology of acoustics and sound is measured in decibels. We use an A-weighted decibel. There are different types of ways to measure noise, whether it's low frequency but we use A-weighted which is most like what a human hearing would be. So that's our basis measurement and then a decibel can be in a variety of measurements whether it's a single event or the loudest point of something the loudest point of an event or a series of aircraft over flights but the main measurement we use for the part 150 is the day-night sound level as we talked about earlier it's this annual average with this 10 dB penalty and so one thing to know about acoustics is it's logarithmic it's not linear addition so if you're adding two flights together it doesn't make it doubly loud there's a larger technical way that noise is measured and there's a lot of detail about that for those who are interested in acoustics in the noise exposure map. In the overall document online we do get into some of the details of fine or tuned technicalities of how this is produced but it can be very technical indeed and difficult for even us as the airport to define these terms to put into the noise map so like Diane said if you're interested it's available online but overall it's defined in a way that we all can understand it a little bit better. And would it also be fair to say that the way this is measured and how this program rolls out it follows policy of the Federal Aviation Administration so there are rules in place there are things that we have to abide by that are guided by the FAA and when we get to the point of the noise compatibility program after the initial stages are set up that that is then administered by the airport itself. Yeah that is a fair point in fact many people one of the frequently asked questions we receive is why don't you physically measure the noise with microphones outside the airport and the simple answer is the FAA the Federal Aviation Administration does not allow that to be put into a noise exposure map so that we can access grant funding and that's the most vital piece there is we have to follow of course like many grantees and municipalities have to follow the federal procurement and federal requirements of this program so that later down the road we can access that federal funding and then yes once that all of these items the noise exposure map and the noise compatibility program these two documents are approved by the FAA then that would be administered by the Burlington airport with communication, constant communication with you and other municipalities that are within this 65DNL. Again we are showing here some different types of sound levels so people can compare what a loud urban environment is versus a suburban environment and showing how a DNL is constant over time and that how there's a penalty at night which raises those noise levels to account for the people who are disturbed more in the middle of the night when they're sleeping the FAA recognizes the human side of all of this so it's important people understand that so land use compatibility as we chatted about a little earlier comes through the federal regulations and it's while we've mainly talked about residential use it also involves public use so it isn't for buildings that are churches or schools or day care centers or hospitals those are also things that are identified as potentially not compatible with the noise environment when you're above the 65DNL noise contours so all of those types of sensitive receptors we've looked at and that's in the document and there are some exceptions to different noise levels if you're in the 75 or higher which is the highest level we're measuring that's incompatible for any land uses in terms of residential or public sensitive receptors and so that's why previously the airport has been purchasing properties now that is mainly on the airport so we don't see a lot of need for purchasing homes because everything is in the 70 and below and so that gives us the more flexibility for sound ventilation or purchase assistance or sales assistance so the next slide is going to be the actual maps themselves but I think it's important for the viewers to understand kind of the steps once again where we are today which is of course publishing this noise exposure map this will be today in fact will be the first day that it's published and open for public comment for the next 30 days which you can access on btvsound.com and there's a little comment section on the left hand side of the screen there once that's completed we'll compile all of that information answer many of those questions and respond to those questions on our website again and then submit that to the FAA and for their acceptance once that's completed we're going to reconvene the technical advisory committee to confirm those land use measures that we talked about the sound insulation purchase assurance and sales assistance programs that confirmation would then detail within our actual noise compatibility document so that we can publish that as well and accept additional public comment from you as a viewer and from your constituents in Winooski and of course South Burlington-Wilston in the surrounding area that document, the noise compatibility document then gets submitted to the FAA later in 2019 so that they can review it they actually review each individual sound measure and approve or deny those sound measures we of course are hopeful that they'll approve all of them because they really truly do make sense in this area and we've worked really hard with our neighbors including yourselves to make sure that it fits with the area and with Vermonters and with who we truly are the FAA takes about 180 days or they can take up to 180 days to review and approve those items once they do approve it then we can access grant funding so at the earliest by summer of next year we'll have that approval so that into late next year 2020 and then really into 2021 we can access federal funding to start implementation of each one of those programs and I think now is a good time to show the map and kind of review if that's what you wish to review the map in its entirety so here you're looking at really a zoomed in area of just Winooski of course tailoring to your viewers you can see at the bottom right hand corner of the map the end of one of the runways at the Burlington area you can see the Winooski downtown as a whole in the top left hand corner I-89 kind of going right through the middle of the screen there and so this red line that you that you're viewing on the outside edges shows the 65 decibel DNL line so that's that average line that Diane was describing and that area right there that outside red line is the initial eligibility for one of those programs again the map has to be accepted by FAA and those programs have to be approved by the FAA until we until we can move forward with accessing grant funding so this really is the map for Winooski this details additionally there are signs in there of the 75 the 70 and like I said the outside edges which is the 65 dB DNL line pause there just for a second just in case we have questions or in case I can remember anything additional to add I would say that on the BTV Sound website there is an eligibility map when you go to that home page you'll see on the left hand side there's an eligibility map if you click on that you can enter your address and it will show your home compared to these noise contours so you'll know where you fall within the noise levels if you're within the project area or outside of the mitigation area but that's helpful that came up tonight as well yeah that's great too I mean when I've seen this map it's a significant portion of Winooski that is impacted as well for those who are kind of on the edge whether or not they would fall into it so being able to search your own property is important I think for folks who want to know more there is the website we have the meeting that you're hosting at the airport tomorrow from 5 to 7 then again we're doing it at the O'Brien Center so we have the airport staff actually coming to us in Winooski to bring some blown up maps more zoomed in on Winooski so homeowners who are interested can come and learn more what would you say is kind of the next step if I'm a property owner in Winooski and I'm concerned about this you know what is my part of the public process here as a homeowner I think your involvement as a homeowner on reviewing the maps reviewing the documentation behind this the next step like I said is completing the documentation for the noise compatibility program as a homeowner that's vital to review as well and to talk to your town leadership or respond to btvsound.com the comment section to really submit questions or comments what those programs entail certainly the airport is always available as I assume the city of Winooski would be as well and really be engaged with what this entails because once those programs are approved and within that documentation we will be moving forward with the FAA and with the grant funding and with the communities on accessing those funds and really implementing those programs directly and we'll work geographically and physically as close to the airport as we can as the FAA allows us to do and work our way outward from that point so it may take some time for the citizens of Winooski to access that grant funding you know working through the airport so I think that's important to stay engaged to read those documentations of course if there's questions always respond to the website or directly to the airport or the city and really get engaged with what those programs are and how you can stay involved in accessing grant funding in future years and I would say to viewers to residents that we as a city are working with the airport we want to hear from you, they want to hear from you as this noise compatibility program is kind of fleshed out and finalized whatever we hear we're going to take that information and bring it to advocate on behalf of our residents for what they want to see in the program we can also direct folks to the airport you know once once we move into the actual funding and program the airport is really running that process but we will be in contact we can also help connect folks and then I think the other thing to take away is that as you explain through this process of approval it's going to be next year before the funding application probably another year before any sort of construction actually begins so it's a slow process that we have to keep working through correct and it's never ending too let's put it that way because even when our technical advisory committee is disbanded because that's really focused on just the noise compatibility program so once that's complete of course we'll disband the technical folks but then we'll continue continuously a sound mitigation committee and that still has your town manager Jesse Baker on it who you and your staff have been wonderful to work with and really important in this whole engagement of this process so that sound mitigation committee is really a rolling committee that we can always tweak and comment and make sure we're moving in the direct in the line and path that we all want to move forward to in accessing and investing into the community with some of these programs yeah it's a constant communication between residents the city, the other cities that are impacted South Burlington, Wilson and so we will continue to work with you all and get to a place where we can roll this out for folks one thing I did want to mention is that parking at the airport tomorrow you can get a voucher so it'll be free when you leave right absolutely there's plenty of free parking at the O'Brien Center for the Thursday event and translation is also available if you reach out to city staff we have some service in place for that if there are folks who need that in order to attend looks like we have about two minutes left any final thoughts or final bits of information you want to share no I think this kind of sums it up and brings us to these these two meetings that we're holding and I think maybe it would be beneficial for the viewer to understand that that the meeting is really an open meeting from 5 to 7 p.m. so there is no formal presentation so if you don't if you can't make it at 5 o'clock p.m. that's okay because there's going to be plenty of opportunity to have one-on-one time with Diane and her team with the airport team as well the FAA will be available to answer any questions at that meeting as well and it's really just a rotation of stations that you can not only understand what these programs as we just discussed what they mean and how they came to be and what the background is on that but also you know those zoomed in maps exactly where you live and get the answers to your unique property and your unique home that you may need in the future well thank you so much for coming to the show tonight hosting the meeting, coming to Manuski to do that as well and I've also heard repeatedly from the airport that they are available to speak one-on-one with anyone who has questions as well absolutely