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