Malaysian Minister For Boost In Bilateral Trade

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Jan, 2020 ) :Malaysian Minister for Primary Industries, Madam Teresa Kok Suh Sim on Friday evening assured Pakistan business community, on behalf of her government, of all possible cooperation for promotion of bilateral trade and investment.

She was speaking at an interactive session with office-bearers of Pakistan Malaysia Business Council of Federation of Pakistan at a local hotel.

Malaysian Consul General, Khairul Nazran Rehman and the Commercial Counselor were also present. The Council team was led by its Chairman Bashir Janmohammed.

The minister heard patiently to Pakistan businessmen and pledged that she would also lobby with other Ministries of Malaysia to get the trade related issues resolved which were raised by them.

She supported the demand by Pakistani business community for direct flights of Malaysian Airline to Karachi to facilitate the movement of the two business communities aimed at boosting bilateral trade and investment, economic cooperation.

Chairman PMBC Bashir Janmohammed and his team called for earliest review of free trade agreement between Pakistan and Malaysia to make it practical and equally beneficial to both the countries.

At present, the trade balance is in favour of Malaysia, and the volume of bilateral trade could be multiplied within next few years if certain adjustments are made in the FTA, he said.

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan wanted more trade with Malaysia and the government was also working on revision of the FTA.

He said if Malaysia facilitated and relaxed the policy for import of Pakistani rice, the volume could be increased to at least half a million tones from the present 0.1 million tones a year.

He said PMBC would send a big business delegation to explore Malaysian market for Pakistani products especially rice. Also, he invited Malaysian businessmen delegation to visit Pakistan to see trade and investment opportunities.

Perviaz Khan from Dalda Foods proposed for joint ventures for growing palm trees at coastal line of Pakistan as Malaysia had expertise in this field.

Malaysian Minister for Industries also had meeting with members of Pak-Malaysia Friendship Association, headed by Shahid Jawed Qureshi.