Consul General of Malaysia, Mohammad Khalid Abdul Razak, has said that his country seeks Pakistan's assistance in developing Malaysian livestock which include transfer of technology from Pakistan in artificial segmentation and development of vaccines, collaboration in biotechnology and pharmaceutical field in livestock sector.
Addressing members of Federal B Area Association of Trade and Industry (FBAATI), he said beside this Malaysia was also interested to import rice, fruit, vegetables, milk, cattle, livestock and fish from Pakistan. He noted that total trade increased by 27.38 percent between the two countries during 2010 including 44.9 percent increase in palm oil, and 34.5 percent increase in electric and electronic products. Likewise 54.8 percent increase in Malaysian import was registered in chemical, chemical products and 10 percent increase in textiles and clothing products from Pakistan.
The Consul General said that total trade between the two countries was 2.503 billion dollars during the period ie 30.8 percent increased from previous year. Out of 2.503 billion dollars trade, Pakistan made 200 million dollars and Malaysia 2.3 billion dollars.
Khalid Abdul Razak said there was an enormous scope for the bilateral trade to register multifold increase provided "we fully exploit the enormous opportunities that exist between the two countries in many sectors including the agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure development, veterinary, fruit and vegetables." Replying to a question, he said Malaysian was providing 15 percent tariff reduction on import of palm oil to Pakistan under Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that's why Pakistan preferred to import palm oil in bulk quantity from Malaysia. Khalid Abdul Razak said his country was still the largest exporter of palm oil and palm oil products to Pakistan which stood at 2.2 billion tones in 2010, valued at 1.96 billion dollars.
Replying to another question, he said Malaysia was assisting Pakistan in growing palm oil trees in Winder, Lasbela and other sites in Pakistan He further said that under FTA Pakistan was to eliminate tariff of 23 percent for trade in goods on the current import from Malaysia whereas Malaysia was to eliminate tariff on 78 percent of imports from Pakistan.
Replying to yet another question he said that Pakistan was a Muslim agriculture country with huge livestock, still its share in trillion dollar world halal products business was nil. Referring to tourism business, he said Malaysia attracted more than 24.5 million tourist in 2010 , and contributed some 14.5 billion dollars towards the national GDP whereas Pakistan total reserves are only 17 billion dollars. Tourism is one of the important areas from where Pakistan can earn foreign exchange, he added.
To another question, he advised business community to conduct business in transparent way to boost trade. He noted with concern that a delegation from Malaysia visited Pakistan to import broken rice. Seeing the Malaysian interest, the rice dealers increased the prices which he said was not fair for trade and the country both.
Chairman FBAATI, Mohammad Irfan emphasised the need for traders and industrialists of both the countries to visit each other countries more frequently and benefit from each others expertise. He said Pakistan offers best investment opportunities and added that Malaysian investors should take full advantage as all sectors of Pakistan economy were open for foreign investments and 100 percent equity and repatriation of profit was allowed.
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