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Bomb blasts Pakistan's economic recovery hopes

AFP, Karachi
The Pakistani business community was Thursday counting the cost of a suicide bomb attack in this southern port city, fearing increasing terrorism would hit foreign investment and trade.
"The foreign business community is in a state of shock," said Moin Fudda, president of the Overseas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which represents foreign companies operating in Pakistan.
Though the immediate withdrawal of foreign companies was not expected, attracting new business would be difficult, he said.
The bomb attack on a minibus outside the Sheraton Hotel here on Wednesday killed 11 French nationals and three Pakistanis.
No group has claimed responsibility but officials in both France and Pakistan say they suspect the al-Qaeda terror network of Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden.
"We used to invite our foreign partners to Pakistan and advised them to stay in the Sheraton Hotel as the safest place for them, but
what would we advise them now?" Fudda asked.
The French nationals killed in the blast were workers from the Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN), a French state-owned company involved in jointly building with Pakistan three Agosta 90B class submarines.
The company immediately recalled all its other expatriate employees from Pakistan.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the attack was "perpetuated by someone who wants to destabilise Pakistan internally", although he did not name any suspects.
He told an emergency meeting of his top security and intelligence advisers he believed the bombing was direct retaliation for Islamabad's cooperation with the US-led war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Musharraf said the "sole purpose of the enemies of Pakistan is to disrupt its economic recovery", and pledged strong action to improve security in the country.
Pakistani business leaders also complained about what they called the deficiencies of the security forces.
"This is a big security lapse which gives a very strong negative signal to potential foreign investors who would now stay back from here," said Zubair Motiwala, a former president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and a leading textile producer.
The businessmen believe recent positive signs that economic acitivity was picking up would be hard to sustain in the wake of the bomb blast.
"We might lose further our European market, especially in France, following the bomb blast, and it's all because of the failure of the law enforcing agencies," said Farrukh Hussain, a leading leather exporter.
France is a major importer of Pakistani leather goods.
"Our partners from France are apprehensive of the grave situation here and are not willing to visit here anymore," Hussain said.