ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Ambassador-designate to Ukraine Major Gen. (Retd) Nadir Khan on Friday assured that he would work to identify new business opportunities for Pakistan in Ukraine and facilitate the business community in promoting trade with Ukrainian counterparts.
He said that lots of business and investment opportunities would be available in Ukraine during its reconstruction phase and stressed that the entrepreneurs and investors of Pakistan should be ready to capture them.
He stated this while addressing the business community during his visit to the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI).
Nadir Khan said that Pakistan-Ukraine bilateral trade was less than US$ 1 billion and the trade balance was highly in favour of Ukraine as Pakistan’s imports were over US$ 700 million and exports were around US$ 70-80 million.
He stressed that the business community of Pakistan should make efforts to export more products to Ukraine to improve the trade balance, and assured of taking all possible measures to facilitate them in that regard.
ICCI President Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari said that Pakistan could export many products to Ukraine, including pharmaceuticals, surgical and medical equipment, textiles, cutlery, construction material, IT products, sports goods, leather products, fruits, and emphasised that the embassy of Pakistan in Ukraine should cooperate in promoting business linkages between the private sectors of both countries to explore new avenues of trade promotion.
He said that Pakistan needed to boost exports to improve its foreign exchange reserves, which had tumbled down to below US$ 3 billion and urged the Commercial Sections of Pakistan in foreign countries to identify the demand of Pakistani products in their respective markets to improve exports.
He said that direct air links between Pakistan and Ukraine were important to promote B2B and P2P relations between the two countries.
Vice President of ICCI, Engineer Muhammad Azhar ul Islam Zafar said that Pakistani commercial counselors should be given annual export targets and their performance should be analyzed on the basis of those targets.
He said that some commercial counselors should be taken from private sector, who could help in improving exports.
