HANOI: Nguyen Xuan Luu, Ambassador of Vietnam, stated that the forthcoming visit of a business delegation from Vietnam to Karachi and Business-to-Business meetings with their counterparts at Karachi Chamber scheduled to be held on August 12, 2015, will surely help in improving the existing trade ties between the two countries.
Vietnam fully realises and lays special emphasis on the significance of Karachi city which acts as the hub of all economic and trading activities of the country which was the key reason why Vietnamese delegation will initially be arriving in Karachi to meet KCCI members and then leave for Islamabad to hold similar meetings, the Vietnamese Ambassador added while speaking at a meeting during his visit to Karachi Chamber on Monday.
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.
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 organise 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.
