Yasser Iqbal, Mayor of Pendle of Lancashire County said that he would play a role to further increase bilateral trade ties between Pakistan and UK as both countries have good potential to do trade in many items for mutual benefit. He said this while exchanging views with Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry during his visit to the Chamber. Ch. Iftikhar, Khalid and Raja Azhar also accompanied him at the occasion.

Yasser Iqbal said that the Pakistani diaspora in the UK is keen to invest in Pakistan as they want to see Pakistan as a strong economy. He said that a further conducive business environment would attract more investment from overseas Pakistanis settled in the UK and other countries. He invited the ICCI delegation to visit the UK to explore business collaboration with Britain counterparts and assured that he would cooperate in making their visit successful.

Speaking at the occasion Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that the UK is an important trading partner of Pakistan and we want to further enhance trade and exports with the UK. He said that bilateral trade between Pakistan and the UK is still less than US$ 3 billion and stressed the need of developing strong business linkages between the private sectors of both countries to take bilateral trade to higher levels. He said that the Chinese and Indian diaspora has played an important role in making the economies of their home countries better and stressed that the Pakistani diaspora should also come forward to steer Pakistan out of the current economic turmoil. He said that the UK has already invested in Pakistan in many sectors including financial services, oil & gas exploration, petroleum refining, electricity generation, pharmaceutical, publishing, industrial chemicals & cement and stressed that Pakistani diaspora in UK should transfer technology and explore JVs and investment in Pakistan.

Khalid Iqbal Malik, Zafar Bakhtawari and others also spoke at the occasion and shared useful ideas for further improving bilateral trade and economic relations between Pakistan and UK.