FAISALABAD: The reciprocal visit of high level Italian trade mission immediately after the visit of FCCI trade delegation is a positive step to give a quantum jump to our bilateral trade, said Engineer Muhammad Saeed Sheikh President FCCI.
He was addressing a function in which president FCCI inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Foreign Trade Association of Italy (AICE). The Italian delegation was headed by Mr. Ivan Scalfarotto Deputy Minister of Economic Development.
This function was organized by Punjab Board of Investment and Trade (PBIT) which was also attended by ambassador of Italy in Pakistan in addition to the representative of sixty leading companies from Italy. Provincial Finance Minister Dr. Ayesha Ghouse Baksh, Chairmen FEDMIC Mian Muhammad Adress, provincial Minister for industries Sheikh Allaudin and president LCCI Mr. Abdul Basit were also present during this meeting which was followed by B2B meetings with the entrepreneurs for the two countries.
President FCCI said that Italy is third major partner of Pakistan in European Union (EU) which will become second major trade partner after Brexit. He told that bilateral trade between Pakistan and Italy was 1.06 billion dollar during last year that has recorded a decline of 14% during this year. He further told that Pakistani share in Italian import is only 0.2% while Italian share in Pakistan is 1%. He said that the visits of Italian delegations are very in time to give a push to the bilateral trade. In this connection the business communities of two countries should have to play their key role by establishing direct links with each other.
Giving a brief resume of Faisalabad, Engineer Muhammad Saeed Sheikh said that basically Faisalabad is an agro-industrial city. Its economic strength is its state of the art textile sector. He said that the total share of textile in Pakistan is around 50% and out of this 50%, 55% is directly contributed by Faisalabad. He said that due to the thriving small and medium entrepreneur sector (SME) its economy is growing at a much faster peace as compare to the other major cities of Pakistan. He told that projected GDP of Pakistan has been calculated around 31 billion dollar in 2025. He invited the Italian entrepreneurs to visit FCCI to explore huge business opportunity available in this city. Commenting on the CPEC, he said that through this mega project, Italy could have access to at least 65 countries of central Asian states and Middle East in addition to china and India. He said that Italy can also help Pakistan in technology transfer particularly in the field of food and milk processing etc.
