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Dubai: Deep-rooted negative perceptions about Pakistan make it a challenging task to promote the country overseas, the congress heard yesterday. Although Pakistan has achieved relative economic success during President Pervez Musharraf's rule, the process of developing a positive national image for the outside world has been a haphazard process, according to Hameed Haroon, chief of Pakistan's leading news group Dawn. According to a survey undertaken by an international company for the Pakistani government, the country still continues to score poorly in areas such as freedom of speech, democracy, economic progress, infrastructure and law and order. "Pakistan with its ethnically diverse and politically polarised populace presents a major obstacle to any specialist consultant," Haroon said in his presentation titled "Marketing a Nation."
"There appears to be a distinct clash of ideas between Pakistan's unreal view of itself and the rest of the world's equally distorted view of Pakistan," he said. Haroon, however, credited the official Board of Investment for some success in promoting Pakistan as an investment destination in the last five years. But the board's image creation campaigns often occur sporadically and are preceded by investment promotion programmes. He said one reason for this is the "relatively decentralised nature of image promotion" in the country.
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