During last week NTWK investors felt a bit frustrated because, in despite of the excellent news, NTWK was not able to remain above $2.00. As some observers have suggested, the assassination of the governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, may have played an important role on this.
Fortunately seems that the US is officially trying to stabilize the region and publically support Pakistan's government. As first reported in Pakistani newspapers and the Washington Post, Vice President Biden will visit Pakistan next week for major meetings with government and military leaders.
Biden is expected to promise to speed up military assistance to Pakistan's army, which often complains that shipments of equipment and reimbursements of funds come too slowly.
This will be good for Pakistan in general and NTWK is particular. Why? because if Pakistan is seen as more stable, more investors will decide to jump in. This could be also good for NTWK because it may, and please note the "may" part, get the ball moving on the multi-million digitalization project with the Pakistan Army.
Why is the US so suddenly interested in publically support Pakistan?. I see two main reasons: one is that in return Biden is expected to ask for what the U.S. continues to be desperate for: going after Afghan militants based in Pakistan, according to both Pakistani and U.S. officials.
The second reason is less obvious but no less important. The US may want to keep a close eye on whatever China is planning with Pakistan. It just happens that Biden's visit was announced hours after the Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani held a huge press meeting to highlight the importance of cooperation between China and Pakistan. The Prime Minister announced:
"Our goals are that we should double our trade from current US $ 7 billion to US $ 15 billion in the shortest possible time." Yes he said "in the shortest possible time".
"We have identified 36 projects for the next Pak-China Five Year Development Programme (2012-16)", the Prime Minister said and added these include major projects in education, health, energy, Information and Communications Technologies, transport, agriculture, and water conservation.
This is without question good for NTWK. As many board members here know. NetSol Technologies is the undisputable IT Power House of Pakistan. There is no way that NTWK will not receive a good piece of this.
So we need to keep an eye on all this. It is important.
Learn more on NTWK following the Shared Due Diligence Blog: http://sharedduediligence.blogspot.com/
