LAHORE: Member of UK House of Lords Baroness Nosheena Mobarik said on Saturday that British government is committed to a long-term, productive and friendly partnership with Pakistan.
Talking to the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industries President Ijaz A. Mumta, she said the United Kingdom views Pakistan as a long-term strategic partner and would continue to support all its endeavours aimed at expansion of trade relations between the two countries.
She said that British entrepreneurs working in Pakistan were having continued interest to work and safeguard their businesses and looking forward to opportunities to further increase their operations by expanding existing projects and explore new avenues for investment. She said that British businessmen admire Pakistani labour force because of their intelligence and hard work which is one of the greatest strength of Pakistan.
While, the LCCI President called for concrete steps to enhance diversified strategic partnership between Pakistan and United Kingdom. He said that strengthening of relations with the UK is a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy.
The LCCI President said, the volume of total two-way trade can easily break the barrier of $ 2 billion if some further avenues of trade are explored with the joint efforts by both the sides. He added that UK is known to have expertise in agriculture sciences that provides specific insight and technologies into the sub-fields like crop genetics, sustainable pest and disease management, seed and plant sciences, composts & synthetic soils etc. “We do need your technical help and guidance to make the most of our available agriculture resources and also develop much required agriculture-industry linkage,” he maintained.
The LCCI President said that Pakistan has great potential in Mines and Minerals development, as important minerals found in Pakistan are iron ores, limestone, chromites, silver, gold, gems stones, marble, copper, graphite etc. He urged the British investors to explore the untapped potential of this sector which will surely result in win-win situation for all.
The UK has gone one step ahead from Industrial Textiles through mastering in Technical Textiles which describes the growing variety of products and manufacturing techniques for technical properties and performance. He said that being dependent on textiles sector which directly and indirectly engages almost two third of Pakistan’s resources, transfer of UK technology to Pakistan would be of great help. Other sectors include Medical Technologies with special focus on Industrial Biotechnology and Science Parks.
Moreover, he said, the UK was successfully implementing very advanced systems in Education and banking sectors therefore, joint ventures could be a good option to develop these sectors on modern lines in Pakistan.
In addition to that Oil & Gas Exploration sector of Pakistan can be another area of mutual benefits for both the countries, he mentioned.
