Badar Shamim, former Chairman, Brampton Board of Trade, Canada and President, Candus International Consulting Inc along with Ms. Margaux McDonald, Senior Trade Commissioner of Canada in Pakistan visited Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry and exchanged views with Muhammad Ahmed Waheed President, Tahir Abbasi Senior Vice President, Saif ur Rehman Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) and members of local business community for further improving bilateral trade and economic relations between Pakistan and Canada.

Badar Shamim said that Pakistan’s ICT companies have great potential to explore business partnerships in Canada. He said that Canada have $800 billion annual trade with USA and Pakistan could get beneficial results for its economy by promoting trade cooperation with Canada. He said that Canada has signed FTAs with G-7 Group countries and Pakistan can increase its exports to these countries by promoting trade with Canada. He said that Pakistan could attract FDI by developing transparent trade laws and regulations. He said that needs for capital and development projects were emerging in developing countries and his purpose of visiting Pakistan was to explore JVs and investment prospects for Canadian companies. He assured that he would try to share information about business and investment opportunities in Canada for Pakistani companies with ICCI so that its members could capitalize on them.

Muhammad Ahmed Waheed, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that Pakistan was an emerging market and emphasized that Canadian investors explore JVs and investment with technology transfer to achieve lucrative results in Pakistan. He said that many MNCs of the world were now taking keen interest in Pakistan and time was ripe for Canadian companies to seriously look at business prospects in Pakistan. He said that by investing in Pakistan, Canadian companies could get easy access to Central Asian and other markets. He said that Pakistan-Canada bilateral trade was around 1.5 billion dollars, which was far less than the actual potential of both countries and stressed that both sides should make strong efforts for trade promotion. He assured that ICCI would fully cooperate with Canadian companies in finding right partners in Pakistan.

Tahir Abbasi, Senior Vice President and Saif ur Rehman Khan Vice President ICCI said that real estate sector of Pakistan offered great untapped investment potential and stressed that Canadian investors should take benefit of these prospects. Zafar Bakhtawari, Muhammad Aslam Khokhar, Faad Waheed, Khalid Chaudhry, Naveed Malik and others also spoke at the occasion