Commerce Minister concerned over declining trade volume with Azerbaijan

ISLAMABAD, May 10 (APP):Minister for Commerce Muhammad Pervaiz Malik Thursday expressed his concerns over declining volume of bilateral trade with Azerbaijan saying bilateral trade was not a true reflection of the great potential of trade between the two countries which had declined declined from US $ 58.26 million in 2015-16 to $ 26.88 million in 2016-17.
He was talking to ambassador of Azerbaijan in Pakistan, Ali Alizada here.
He said in order to enhance and diversify trade with Azerbaijan, Ministry of Commerce had prepared a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on five year trade cooperation plan that had been shared with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for onward transmission to the relevant authorities of Azerbaijan for their comments, however response from Azerbaijan side is awaited.
The minister stressed the need to take concerted efforts from both sides to increase the trade volume and economic cooperation.
“The decrease in Pakistan’s exports to Azerbaijan in 2016-17 is mainly due to decline in export of rice to Azerbaijan from US $ 45 million to US $ 21.1 million”, he added.
Commerce Minister said Pakistan is a profitable market and investors from Azerbaijan should take full advantage of it by investing in different sectors.
Commerce Minister said there exists good scope for export of ready-made garments, cotton products, engineering goods, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, rice, textile fabrics, sports goods, surgical instruments and tents from Pakistan and import of non-ferrous metals, oil and oil products, canned fruit juices, raw cotton, LPG from Azerbaijan.
“There is need to increase the Business to Business and Government to Government interactions and exchange of delegations to identify the business opportunities that will in turn result in increasing the Trade volume”, he added.
He said that Pakistani government and Ministry of Commerce & Textile will provide full support in this regard.
Ali Alizada said that Pakistan is a lucrative market for investors from Azerbaijan and they are keenly interested in investment. He also agreed with the minister’s proposal for increased interaction and institutional arrangements to discuss trade related issues and identify areas of interest to boost bilateral trade and cooperation.
Later, Ambassador of Romania, Nicolae Gola also called on the Federal Minister for Commerce and Textile Mohammad Pervaiz Malik.
The Minister welcomed the ambassador and said that Pakistan attaches great importance to its trade relations with Romania as it is an important trading partner of Pakistan with in the European Union region.
Pakistan’s bilateral trade with Romania was US $ 97.25 million in 2016-2017. Pakistan’s exports were US $ 21.23 million while imports were US $ 76.02 million.
Commerce Minister thanked the Romanian government for extending its support to Pakistan for continuation of the GSP plus scheme and hoped that Pakistan would continue receiving its support in this regards as it has helped Pakistan in a significant way in overcoming its economic difficulties.
Under this scheme most products of Pakistan has duty free access to EU including Romania. Commerce Minister also demanded that a business visa of multiple entries with one year validity may be issued to Pakistani businessmen.
The ambassador thanked Commerce Minister for the warm welcome and said that there should be increased interaction for boosting bilateral trade.
“Business Communities of the two countries may interact more to increase the level of bilateral trade and both the countries should participate in Trade Fairs arranged by the two countries”, he added.
Both sides agreed on making institutional arrangements for addressing trade related issues and identifying business opportunities.