KARACHI: Nguyen Xuan Luu, Ambassador of Vietnam, while commenting on Pakistan-Vietnam bilateral trade and investment ties, stated that a business delegation from Vietnam will visit Karachi to hold business-to-business meetings with their local counterparts.
Vietnam fully realizes and lays special emphasis on the significance of the Karachi city which acts as the hub of all economic and trading activities of the country. The Vietnamese delegation will initially be arriving in Karachi to meet KCCI members and then will leave for Islamabad to hold similar meetings, the Vietnamese Ambassador added while speaking at a meeting during his visit to the Karachi Chamber.
President KCCI, Iftikhar Ahmed Vohra, Senior Vice President KCCI Muhammad Ibrahim Kasumbi, Former President KCCI Majyd Aziz, Chairman Diplomatic Affairs Sub-Committee Naeem Sharif and KCCI Managing Committee members were present at the meeting.
Nguyen Xuan Luu, Ambassador of Vietnam further underscored the need to explore opportunities for enhancing trade and economic cooperation between Pakistan and Vietnam, particularly between the business communities of Karachi and Vietnam.
To a query about Vietnamese visa policy, the Ambassador said that Vietnam’s visa policy was more or less liberal and the visas were being issued within seven days whereas Vietnamese government has also granted visa exemptions only to its strategic partners including UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and others.
In order to improve trade between Pakistan and Vietnam, the Ambassador stressed the need to regularly exchange visits of trade delegations. In this regard, he also asked the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry to organize visit of a trade delegation to Vietnam which would bring business communities closer to each other.
Earlier while welcoming the Vietnamese Ambassador, President KCCI Iftikhar Ahmed Vohra informed that the Karachi Chamber was working actively to resolve the grievances being faced by the business and industrial community by taking up their issues at the provincial and federal levels, besides playing its due role in striving hard towards enhancing Pakistan’s imports and exports.
He pointed out that bilateral trade relations between Vietnam and Pakistan in recent years have improved considerably and Pakistan was Vietnam’s largest tea importer. During Fiscal Year 2015, Pakistan exported goods to Vietnam of worth $222.92 million as against $206.54 million in the previous year showing mere surge of 0.07 percent. The goods imported by Pakistan from Vietnam stood at $122.5 million as against imports of $ 94.01 million in the previous Fiscal Year 2013 thereby showing growth of 30 percent, he added.
He was of the view that there was a huge potential for Vietnam and Pakistan to further enhance the multifaceted cooperation, such as in the areas of trade and investment, IT and software industry, agriculture, culture and education. Although various steps have been taken by trade authorities of both Pakistan and Vietnam in the past few years to increase trade but lot more needs to be done, he added.
He advised that the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vietnam should sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry which should focus on facilitating trade and sharing trade-related information.
