ISLAMABAD: Businessmen of Belarus and Pakistan will discuss cooperation prospects in Minsk on Tuesday, the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said.
The Belarusian-Pakistani Business Forum is included into the programme of the meeting of the Belarusian-Pakistani Business Council and bilateral talks with Pakistani business circles. It is expected that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will take part in the opening of the business forum, Belarusian news agency ‘BelTA’ reported on Monday.
Businessmen of the two countries will get an opportunity to discuss trade and economic cooperation as well as the ways to expand cooperation and implement joint projects in the most promising areas.
Pakistani companies are interested in establishing business ties with Belarusian companies in the chemical and textile sectors, and industry (cotton, fabric and materials sales), mechanical engineering (the purchase of industrial, quarry and agricultural equipment, component parts to Belarusian vehicles).
Potential partners are also interested in the processing and sales of raw materials for the construction industry and the export of agricultural products (vegetables, fruit, grain crops, rice and sunflower oil).
The Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry invites Belarusian companies and organizations interested in expanding contacts with Pakistani companies to take part in the business forum.
Pakistani Minister of Commerce Khurram Dastgir Khan noted earlier that the intensification of the trade and economic cooperation would promote the development of the two countries.
He expressed the hope that cooperation would open doors for Pakistan to the European region and for Belarus to South Asia and the Middle East.
In the last eight years the Belarus-Pakistan trade has been between $50 and $120 million a year. Belarus’ main exports to Pakistan include tractors, potash fertilizers, synthetic fiber, and tyres.
Belarus mainly imports Pakistani rice, styrole polymers, fruit, food products, leather goods, fabric and textile.
In 2014, the bilateral trade totaled $58.2 million. Belarus’ exports to Pakistan made up $42.6 million (100.3 percent to 2013); the import was $15.5 million (98.5 percent).
Last year Belarus’ exports of potash fertilizers to Pakistan increased two times, that of truck and tractor parts by 30 percent.
In January-May 2015 the Belarusian export to Pakistan totalled $19.3 million (117.8 percent to the same period last year).
