Arab Spring may impact bilateral trade with Pak
Recent hike in civil agitation against Egyptian government could affect bilateral trade between Pakistan and Egypt around $249 million, well placed sources informed on Saturday.
Senior official of trade management on condition of anonymity informed that ongoing democratic move against the rulers of Arab and African continent could draw a dreadful impact over Pak-Gulf-African bilateral trade.
According to details provided by foreign department, Pakistan’s bilateral trade with Egypt is around $249 million, while Egyptians invested around $2.5 billion in telecom, construction and hoteling businesses.
Pak-Egypt trade review conducted by foreign office maintained that Pakistani tycoons invested over $50 million in Egypt mainly in the textile business, while both countries agreed during the Joint Ministerial Commission’s (JMC) Session held in Cairo last year, to enhance cooperation in twenty one sectors including trade, food and beverages, investment, tourism, software technology parks, cement manufacturing, oil and gas exploration, power generation, agriculture, health and automotives.
Similarly another affected region by civil agitation, Yemen that are based on common faith, culture and values, interact in trade business with Pakistan, the bilateral trade between both countries is around $100 million, which was increased in the past few years, while Yemen is among the top 10 rice importing countries from Pakistan.
In order to further boost the economic and commercial relations between Pakistan and Libya, both countries also signed seven Agreements, MoUs and both sides agreed to initiate a joint study for PTA leading to FTA. A Joint Investment Company with subsidiaries in oil, gas, agriculture, banking, finance and infrastructure development projects has also been established.
Under the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) process Iran had committed $ 320 million, while it would also be facilitated by an important source of energy following the Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline project.
Some other important projects under implementation, negotiations with Iran included supply of 1000 MW electricity (on Taftan-Quetta Transmission Line) was signed in April 2007 and both sides are working to negotiate its various aspects.
Import of 100 MW of Electricity (on Gwadar-Makran region Transmission Line), Road and Rail Network up-gradation projects including the Pak-Iran-Turkey, “Gul Train” are under ECO framework.
The leaders of the both countries in their September 2011 summit in Iran had raised the target for annual trade to $ 10 billion. Quantum of current annual bilateral trade with Iran is $ 1.5 billion.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had informed lower house of the parliament during last session ended on November 25 (Friday) that despite good political relations with Libya, our trade relations are much below the desired potential.
She said that efforts are however, underway to enhance trade and economic relations to the mutual benefits of our two nations.
She claimed that country has been enjoying close friendly relations with all the North African and Middle Eastern countries including Egypt and Yemen and relations with these countries based on common faith, culture and similarity of views on a host of issues related to regional and international importance.