ISLAMABAD: Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has said that US should remove all trade barriers including strict visa conditions for promoting bilateral trade with Pakistan up to real potential.
This was stated by ICCI President Muzzamil Hussain Sabri when Beney J. Lee, Desk Officer for Pakistan in Washington, Department of State, USA along with David Ryan Sequeira Economic Officer and Nasir Hamid Rao Economic Advisor, Embassy of US in Pakistan visited ICCI to learn about the bottlenecks restricting trade potential between the two countries, besides discussing the ways and means to further improve bilateral trade between Pakistan and USA.
Speaking at the occasion, Sabri also highlighted the various bottlenecks being faced by the Pakistani business community in doing trade with USA
He said Pakistan has suffered huge economic losses due to fighting war against terrorism and the best way for US to compensate it was giving it easy market access. He said many Chinese investors were taking increased interest to Pakistan which reflected its great economic potential and urged that US should also encourage its investors to visit Pakistan for exploring business opportunities. He said the visit of US investors to Pakistan will also send a positive signal to other foreign investors. He said chambers of commerce of both countries should sign memorandum of understanding of cooperation and both countries should strengthen cooperation between various sectors including marble, textiles, pharmaceutical, IT, leather and others to improve bilateral trade.
However, Beney J. Lee, Desk Officer for Pakistan in Washington said US was encouraging its private sector to partner with Pakistani counterparts for investment and joint ventures. She said Pakistan and US have good potential to enhance cooperation in energy, agriculture and education sectors and stressed that both governments should facilitate their entrepreneurs to strengthen collaboration for achieving mutually beneficial outcomes. She said US was ready to help Pakistan in innovative researches in the fields of education, agriculture and other sectors.
She said both countries should focus on developing sector-specific cooperation between their private sectors that would help in increasing two-way trade. She said US was interested in capacity building of Pakistani entrepreneurs through trainings. She assured that the trade barriers pointed out by ICCI would be brought into the notice of relevant US authorities for redress with the aim to improve bilateral trade.
Shakeel Munir Senior Vice President and M. Ashfaq Hussain Chatha Vice President ICCI highlighted the potential of marble products for US market while Naeem Siddiqui said that Pakistan’s IT products have also good scope for US market. They stressed for regular interactions between the private sectors, especially SMEs of both countries. They said US should help Pakistan with technology transfer in energy, IT, agriculture and other sectors and encourage frequent exchange of trade delegations to tap all untapped areas of mutual collaboration.
