PBBC eyes 10 billion pounds bilateral trade potential between Pakistan and UK

The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) and Pakistan-Britain Business Council (PBBC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance cooperation for promoting bilateral trade between Pakistan and the United Kingdom. Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President ICCI and Rashid Iqbal, CEO PBBC signed the MoU during the visit of a PBBC delegation to ICCI.

Speaking at the occasion, Julian Hamilton Barns, Chairman PBBC and Honorary Consul General of Pakistan in UK said that the bilateral trade of around 3 billion pounds between UK and Pakistan is not in commensurate with their actual potential and stressed that the business community of both countries should work together to take the bilateral trade to at least 10 billion pounds as they have potential for it. He said that Pakistan’s blue economy has tremendous potential to generate business of billions of dollars and emphasized that the Pakistani business community should reach out to international counterparts to exploit the untapped potential of its blue economy. He said that PBBC is working to promote networking and connectivity between private sectors of Britain and Pakistan to further improve business and investment relations.

Rashid Iqbal, CEO, PBBC stressed for more interaction and events between ICCI and PBBC to increase bilateral trade ties. He said that the business community of both countries should participate in trade fairs and exhibitions in each other country to introduce their products that would help in boosting trade between the two countries.

Speaking at the occasion, Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that Pakistan and Britain are doing trade in limited items and they should diversify trade to achieve better results. He stressed that the investors of Britain should explore joint ventures and investment in various sectors of Pakistan’s economy including CPEC and assured that ICCI would help in connecting them with right partners in Pakistan. He hoped that close cooperation between ICCI and PBBC would help in further improving trade and economic ties between Pakistan and UK.

Rizwana Asif, President, Islamabad Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry underlined the need of promoting close cooperation between the women entrepreneurs of Pakistan and UK for their better economic empowerment.

Zafar Bakhtawar, former President ICCI, stressed for promoting a commonwealth market that would create more business opportunities for the entrepreneurs of commonwealth countries.