ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has great potential to promote exports of IT products, mangoes, dry fruits and many other products to Japan and Pakistani businessmen should exploit these opportunities for promoting trade with Japan. This was observed by Masao Otsuka, Japan International Cooperation Agency’s Trade Promotion Advisor to Trade Development Authority of Pakistan during his visit to Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
He said Japan’s 2 million SMEs were looking for import of software products from outside due to their high cost in local market and Pakistan’s IT sector businessmen has good opportunity to promote export of software products to Japanese SMEs. He said Japanese companies were facing shortage of engineers and they were keen to invest in Pakistan, but have some reservations on security situation here. He said Pakistan could attract more investment from Japan by setting up specific economic zones, providing secured environment and ensuring uninterrupted power supply to Japanese investors.
He said Pakistani mangoes and dry fruits were quite popular in Japan while negotiations were in process to sort out issues for export of Pakistani citrus to Japan. He said JICA has assigned him as Trade Promotion Advisor to TDAP for promoting Pakistan’s exports to Japan and he was tying up with Pakistani Chambers of Commerce and Industry to explore new avenues of achieving this goal. He said he had taken a Pakistani trade delegation to Japan in May last year while another such delegation was being planned in May 2017. He urged that Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry ICCI members should accompany this delegation to explore business promotion opportunities in Japan. He said he would give a presentation to ICCI members in the 2nd week of Dec’16 about getting better access to Japanese market.
Speaking at the occasion, Khalid Iqbal Malik, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that Japanese auto companies were doing good business by assembling vehicles in Pakistan and stressed that they should set up manufacturing plants in Pakistan as it was a promising market for auto sector. He said many Pakistani products including IT, textiles & apparel, leather, sports, gems & jewelry, marble, fruits and others could find good market in Japan, but Japan’s high import tariffs were major trade barriers for Pakistan. He emphasized that Japan should reduce its high tariffs to facilitate further promotion of Pakistani exports.
He said Japan has advanced technology and it should transfer its technology and expertise to Pakistan that would further promote industrialization in our economy. He said bilateral trade between the two countries was still less than $2 billion with trade balance tilted in favor of Japan. He said Japan should provide easy access to Pakistani products in its market for improving bilateral trade balance.
