LAHORE: President of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry Abdul Basit and Pakistan High Commissioner in Australia Naela Chauhan in a meeting at Canberra agreed to further cement trade and economic relations between Pakistan and Australia. There was also a consensus to adopt new methodology to expedite the volume of two-way trade.
Naela Chauhan said that Pakistani Consulate in Australia would share available business opportunities and would pave way for joint ventures between the private sectors of the two countries. She said that private sector would have to play an important role to enhance existing trade volume that does not match the potential of the two countries. She appreciated the LCCI efforts to promote external trade of Pakistan and promised to extend beset cooperation to promote bilateral trade.
The LCCI President Abdul Basit said that Pakistani Missions abroad should establish display centers for Pakistani products and cultural centers to promote Pakistani culture. These measures would help Pakistani products to get due share in the global market and would also attract foreigners towards Pakistan.
Abdul Basit said that the size of global market for Halal products is estimated dollar 3 trillion. Pakistan is a natural base for Halal products. If we could acquire 10% share in its trade then we can easily enhance our exports by more than two times. He said that Australia and Pakistan have been steady trading partners. With regard to major exporting countries of Pakistan, Australia takes 26th position. Similarly, Australia comes at 16th rank among the top importing countries to Pakistan.
“We are concerned about the comparatively low level of exports to Australia which results in unfavourable trade balance”, the LCCI President added and said that the current level of exports to Australia does not match the actual export potential of Pakistan.
He said that our Embassies or High Commissions along with their subsidiary consulate offices have certain role to play to facilitate the business community of Pakistan who are very eager to develop trade relations with their counterparts in major economies. He said that any trade related information sharing with the chambers of commerce in Pakistan by the respective commercial sections of our embassies/high commissions can provide a lead to grab the possible business opportunities.
The LCCI President said that the commercial sections of other countries regularly share market surveys and commercial intelligence reports with their business communities which become basis to evaluate the chances of greater trade links. Pakistan will certainly welcome to have the same response from our own commercial sections on regular basis.
He said that trade diplomacy is another important tool that greatly helps in paving ways between two countries to increase the bilateral trade relations.
