KARACHI, Jan 10 (APP):President Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Atif Ikram Sheikh, Wednesday, said that FPCCI and Scottish Chambers of Commerce (SCC) will tangibly enhance their cooperation to promote trade, investments, joint ventures and broader economic relations.
The FPCCI president, in a statement issued here, reiterated that the Pakistani diaspora in Scotland was already very strong and Pakistan stands a great chance to up-scale its commercial and business interests with Scotland.
He informed that the Ambassador of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce for Pakistan, Dr Jeanette Forbes visited FPCCI Head Office in Karachi to present her plan for trade promotion between the two counterparts. Dr Jeanette Forbes, speaking at the occasion highlighted that SCC represents over 12,000 companies and more than 50 percent of the private-sector workforce.
She added that a noteworthy collaboration between SCC and FPCCI was formalized through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for strengthening trade cooperation but there remains much work to be done in areas such as export promotion, foreign direct investment (FDI), joint ventures (JVs) and business-to-business (B2B) linkages.
Dr Forbes specifically emphasized the tourism, hospitality and cultural avenues in Scotland and their role in the promotion of people-to-people, business-to-business and on a macro-level, chamber-to-chamber linkages.
SVP FPCCI, Saquib Fayyaz Magoon, maintained that FPCCI was looking forward to Scottish investment and cooperation in infrastructure development, renewable energy, water resource management, financial services, food and beverages, healthcare services and retailing ventures.
In return, Pakistan offers the prospect of reducing Scotland’s cost of doing business through a skilled, abundant and cost-effective workforce, business process outsourcing (BPO) and facilitation in sourcing competitive products and services, he added.
Former SVP FPCCI, Mirza Ikhtiar Baig, stressed that FPCCI was committed to forging productive, reciprocal business relationships with SCC as it firmly believes in the power of strong alliances to support and promote trade activities for the mutual advancement of our nations.
