ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Commerce (MoC) has found out lack of information and lack interaction among business communities as a major hurdle in promotion of Pakistan’s exports to European countries especially Spain.
“Although business communities of Pakistan and Spain possess enormous potential and capacity to higher bilateral trade and trade activities yet lack of knowledge and lack of interaction between private sectors have proved main hurdle in this regard,” a high-level official source at the MoC told this scribe here on Tuesday.
The source proposed that both countries needed to overcome this hurdle which would benefit Pakistani and Spanish businessmen. “Both countries should enhance exchange of business delegations to explore new avenues of business partnerships and assured that Embassy of Spain would play facilitative role to achieve these goals,” the source added. The source said that Spain was one of the main wind and renewable energy producer in Europe with advanced expertise in the construction of ports, roads, highways & airports and was ready to help Pakistan in energy and infrastructure development.
“This inclination, resolve and determination has been expressed on several occasions by Spanish side,” the source added, saying that despite challenges, Pakistan’s geographical location and Pak-China economic corridor offered plenty of opportunities to investors. The source said the MoC had stressed on investment friendly policies to lure and motivate the foreign investors and companies to explore Pakistan for investment and joint ventures, especially in renewable energy and other areas of potential cooperation.
“Spain has good potential to cooperate in tourism, agriculture and telecommunication sectors as well” the source observed adding that in 2012, Pakistan’s share in Spain’s total imports was only 0.2% while Spain’s share in Pakistan’s total imports was 0.1% while two countries have greater potential for enhancing trade and stressed that renewed effort were required to be made to improve it.” The source said that Pakistan and Spain should facilitate and encourage private sectors to develop strong linkages in order to explore and exploit all avenues of cooperation in order to realise shared objectives of promoting sustainable trade and economic relations.
“Pakistan possessed immense reserves and wide varieties of marble stones which can attract Spanish entrepreneurs with technology transfer and share of expertise to produce value added marble products,” the source added, proposing that MoC should consider sending delegation to Spain to find out opportunities of business collaboration.
