How does further inflating the real estate bubble count as productive investment?
Well if its capex driven low-income housing, there is merit to the thing...as construction sector can bring lot of jobs and creates hard assets in valuable areas of a country. Theoretically if you attract lot of sound money in productive industries or investment funds directly, you can create a large job-providing sector that does not need immense training-investment...but provide a middle bulk sector for the economy. That is for example how China created even more job pull in the cities past just the initial factories.
Problem with Pakistan is the land-mafias joined at hip to each other and the DHA khakis et al., so entire effort turns into bubble and speculation quite prematurely (even for a developing country) like you describe.
I have been sensing this since a long time ago when musharaff first took power and he visited Singapore iirc (where I was at the time), and pakistan embassy produced a full multi-page feature (in a section of the Straits Times) of industry brochures complete with musharaf-isms like Pakistan will soon beat India in IT exports and will soon beat India at space launches and this and that.
Then certain folks confirmed it for me in PDF in much more grounded sectors a country really needs to get as correct as possible.
They are outnumbered heavily by the brochure-wallahs though...and droned out or banned when they mention underlying rot that is uncomfortable.