LAHORE: Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Kashif Anwar and Vice President on Friday met Charge d’Affairs of Philippines Maria Agnes M. Cervantes and Director General Intellectual Property Rights (IPO) Shazia Adnan in two separate meetings and have fruitful discussions. Vice President Adnan Khalid Butt President Pakistan Philippines Business Forum Engineer Haseeb Khan and LCCI Executive Committee Members were also present on the occasion.
Charge d’Affairs of the Embassy of Philippines Maria Agnes M. Cervantes said that her country has keen interest in strengthening trade and economic ties with Pakistan and wants to enhance mutual trade volume to the maximum level.
She urged the business community of Pakistan to come forward and explore the untapped international trade markets of Philippines. She said that there is a huge potential to increase the volume of mutual trade. She said both the countries are enjoying cordial trade relations which should be enhanced. She added that promotion of cultural relations between Pakistan and the Philippines will also strengthen bilateral economic and trade relations. She said that cultural, diplomatic, economic and trade ties have been established between the two countries in many potential sectors, which have wider possibilities of further strengthening bilateral relations in the future, she said.
LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that according to the World Bank data 2021, Philippines has GDP in excess of 390 billion dollars. We are really impressed by the excellent economic performance registered by Philippines during 2021 with growth rate of 5.7%. He said that Pakistan and Philippines have very cordial diplomatic relations and both the countries have been steady trading partners as well. However, the bilateral trade figures hardly reflect these ties.
He said that as per trade data sought from State Bank, Pakistan, I am glad to quote that our exports to Philippines increased from 114 million Dollars in 2020-21 to 155 million dollars in 2021-22 while our imports surged from 29 million dollars to 35 million dollars in the same period. This essentially means that our trade volume has increased from around 143 million dollars to 190 million dollars during that period. You will agree with me that we need to make joint efforts to increase bilateral trade to at least 1 billion dollars.
Kashif Anwar said that the biggest potential sector for Pakistan to enhance exports to Philippines is Rice as the President of the Philippines removed restriction on the import of rice. The other potential items are processed food items and pharmaceuticals.
He mentioned that Tourism is one of the priority sectors of the Government due to its tremendous potential. The landscape of Pakistan has everything; one can wish to see –mountains, valleys, rivers, seaside, deserts, open fields etc. Pakistan offers a wide spectrum of tourism ranging from religious to historical places and ancient civilizations to modern architecture.
“We seek the support from Philippines – being an important member of ASEAN for getting Pakistan Full-Dialogue partnership with ASEAN.
We believe that there are great prospects of increasing trade between Pakistan and Philippines through diversification of products”, LCCI President added.
