On a September evening when many of Pakistan’s 165 million people were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, billionaire Mian Mohammad Mansha, the country’s richest man, was deciding whether to buy an Indonesian bank.
A phone call to his Lahore office interrupted him: Turn on the television, his son Hassan implored. The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was in flames after terrorists had detonated a truck packed with explosives. The blast, in a security zone less than a kilometer from the presidential residence, killed 53 and injured 266.
“It was terrifying,” says Mansha, 61, chairman of the Nishat Group financial, textile and cement-making empire, who says he stays at the Marriott when he’s in the capital. Just hours before the blast, Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s new president, had vowed to rid the country of the “cancer” of terrorism.
As Pakistan battles extremist-inspired violence and its worst economic crisis in a decade, Mansha says he’s keeping Nishat Group’s expansion on track.
At home, where his MCB Bank Ltd is the biggest lender by market value, he was in talks in October to buy a rival he declines to name. He’s looking at four banks in Indonesia, the only country with a bigger Muslim population than Pakistan.
By May, he’ll open a machinery and automobile leasing company in Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim country between Iran and Russia. He’s eyeing Kazakhstan and the Mideast for banking. And he’s also looking at Canada, with a Pakistani community estimated at more than 300,000 people.
Mansha started building in the decades of upheaval that followed Pakistan’s split with India after their independence from Britain in 1947.
Now he’s taking a cue from entrepreneurial Indians. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd, and Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Group, expanded as India grew at an average annual rate of 8.8 per cent in the five years ended on March 31, 2008.
Pakistan almost kept pace with its larger neighbor: Its gross domestic product rose at an average of 7 per cent during the five years that ended on December 31, 2007.
“I want to be the first Pakistani, like some of our counterparts in India, to really go out and show that we Pakistanis can even be successful outside Pakistan,” Mansha says two days after the Marriott bombing.
Mansha is optimistic during a dire period for Pakistan.
On December 27, last year, Zardari’s wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was killed in a gunfire and suicide bomb attack. Political wrangling followed, leaving a power vacuum.
In September, Zardari was elected by Parliament as a civilian president in a country dominated by a military that had 619,000 members in 2006, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Since his election, US forces in Afghanistan have stepped up raids into western Pakistan, targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who move at will across the border of the lawless area. Pakistan’s rivalry with India adds to the anxiety, as both countries possess nuclear bombs. Relations have improved since a 2003 cease-fire over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Foreign ministers of both countries pledged to advance their more than 5- year-old peace process in a meeting in New Delhi on November 26.
Later the same day, terrorists stormed five-star hotels and tourist sites in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, killing 195 people. A little-known domestic militant group called the Deccan Mujahadeen claimed responsibility.
India will “go after” individuals and organisations behind the attacks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a televised address November 27, without identifying the nations. On November 28, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said elements from Pakistan were behind the attacks. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi challenged India to provide evidence of a link. Pakistan, which has fought three wars with India, has denied any role.
The deadliest attacks in India in 15 years have heightened tension in the region, says Robert Broadfoot, the Hong Kong-based managing director of Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. “It’s a very serious situation,’’ he says. “War is not the most likely scenario but it’s a possibility.’’
“My biggest worry is whether it will fuel nationalism in the country and play into extremism,’’ Broadfoot says. “Emotions run very, very high. How you can channel these emotions into something positive is a major challenge for any country.’’
Mansha says escalating tensions between Pakistan and India would be disastrous for the region. “I still strongly believe in detente between India and Pakistan and opening up trade facilities,” he said in a telephone interview on November 28. “That will lead to a situation where misunderstandings will become less between the two countries. I would urge our leaders not to waver from what has to be done. The relationships have to be strengthened.”
Mansha cautioned that harm would come from backtracking on progress the countries have made in their ties. “If we do get into a defensive mode again or closing our minds, that will serve the terrorists,’’ he said. “We need to have courage and move forward.’’
Concern about the Mumbai attacks comes as Pakistan again is trying to skirt default after having once avoided that abyss with a $600 million International Monetary Fund loan in 1999. That year, Pervez Musharraf seized power in a military coup. He named himself president in 2001. Record remittances from Pakistanis overseas and investments by international companies spurred the strongest economic run in decades.
