LCCI, Pak Mission to work jointly for enshancing trade with the Netherlands

LAHORE, Aug 10 (APP): Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and Pakistani Mission in the Netherlands will work togather to expedite two-way trade.
This was decided in a meeting between Ambassador-designate to the Netherlands Iffat Imran Gardezi and LCCI Vice President Nasir Saeed at Lahore Chamber on Wednesday.
Both sides also agreed to work on exchanging sector-specific potential business delegations.
Nasir Saeed said that the Netherlands was located at North-West of Europe and shared borders with Germany and Belgium.
He said that both the Netherlands and Pakistan had good diplomatic relations and it was an encouraging sign that two-way trade was maintaining a level of billion dollars. From 2014 to 2015, the total trade inched up from dollar 1.01 billion to dollar 1.03 billion.
He said that Pakistan’s exports to the Netherlands were to the tune of dollar 685 million in 2014 which decreased to dollar 667 million in 2015.
Similarly in the same period, Pakistan’s imports from the Netherlands slightly enhanced from dollar 325 million to dollar 361 million.
He said, Pakistani businessmen would like to develop good trade and economic relations with their counterparts from the Netherlands that would be possible if Pakistani Mission in Netherlands played a helping role.
The LCCI Vice President said that Market Intelligence Reports were serving as a good tool to know about potential areas where Pakistan could try to take some share.
He said that Pakistani Mission in the Netherlands could market Pakistan as a beneficial place for Dutch investors who could make joint venture with their Pakistani counterparts.
“It has been observed that trade diplomacy has done wonders in bringing two countries closer to each other. Pakistani Mission should make use of all the options available to you to generate as many business opportunities for Pakistan as possible.
We will appreciate to receive any business inquiry through your reference,” Nasir Saeed urged the Ambassador-disignate.
While, Iffat Imran Gardezi said that fact remained that Netherlands could open up doors of neighbouring countries to Pakistani merchandise. She stressed the need for exchange of trade delegation and their participation in each other’s exhibition.
“I will ensure timely dissemination of trade related information and try level best to send more and more businessmen of the Netherlands to Pakistan to pave way for joint ventures between private sectors of the two countries,” she assured.
She added that Pakistani businessmen would have to adopt aggressive strategy to enter into the market of the Netherlands because they were not only quality conscious but very selective and careful while making deals with other countries.