H.E. Mr. Tarek Mohamed Hussein Dahroug Ambassador of Egypt to Pakistan said that his country was keen to further enhance bilateral trade relations with Pakistan as both countries have good potential to export many high quality products to each other at competitive prices. He said this while addressing the business community during his visit to Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry. He was accompanied by Ibrahim Said Abdelrahim Ibrahim, Deputy Head of Mission.

The Egyptian envoy said that he was quite ambitious and ready to go the extra mile in order to promote trade relations between Egypt and Pakistan as it would bring more beneficial results for the economies of both countries. He said by enhancing trade cooperation with Egypt, Pakistan could get easy access to many markets of African countries including Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Algeria. He said that Pakistan and Egypt should focus on promoting direct exports that would be more competitive in terms of prices for each other. He said that an MoU was signed long time ago for Pak-Egypt Business Council, but no progress was made and urged that both countries should make target oriented efforts to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

Speaking at the occasion, Muhammad Ahmed Waheed, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that Pakistan and Egypt enjoyed historically cordial and friendly relations that should be transformed into growing trade and economic relations. He said that Pak-Egypt bilateral trade in 2017 was just around USD 154 million, which was far less given the market size of both countries and urged that both sides should focus on developing strong linkages between their private sectors in order to explore all untapped areas of trade promotion.

Muhammad Ahmed Waheed said that Pakistan could export many products to Egypt including rice, marble, engineering goods, agro-processed products, surgical instruments, pharmaceuticals and sports goods. He said that both countries have good potential to cooperate in many areas including agricultural products, engineering goods like electrical apparatuses and power appliances, construction & building material, tourism, shipping, fertilizers, chemicals, textiles products, leather goods, medical and surgical items and pharmaceuticals. He said that many Pakistani products were entering the Egyptian market through third country labels and urged that the Pakistan Government should cooperate with its private sector in promoting Made in Pakistan brands in Egypt to realize better results. He further said that Pakistan and Egypt should consider signing a free trade agreement that would remove hurdles and boost trade between the two countries.

Tahir Abbasi Senior Vice President, Saif ur Rehman Khan Vice President ICCI, Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, M. Aslam Khokhar, Sheikh Ilyas, Abbas Hashmi, Faad Waheed, Malik Sohail Hussain, M. Shakeel Munir, Khalid Chaudhry and others also spoke at the occasion and offered many good suggestions for promoting Pak-Egypt bilateral trade.