Bilateral trade between Pakistan and Netherlands is going to swell beyond $1 billion this year, a Dutch official told Business Recorder, here on Thursday. "In 2015, the size of our bilateral trade was around $900 million," said Rick Slettenhaar, first secretary and head of economic affairs at Netherlands embassy in Islamabad. "I am not a betting man but confident that this year it will touch the $1 billion mark. I will bet on that," the official said on the sidelines of a businessmen meeting organised by Consulate General of Netherlands here.
The event was attended among others by Ambassador of Netherlands Jeanette Seppen, Honorary Consul General Tarek M. Khan, Chief Executive Pakistan Business Council (PBC) Ehsan A. Malik, Chairman and CEO Philips Asad S. Jafar, PUM Representative Javaid Ashraf, Senior Vice President PAAPAM Muhammad Mashood Ali Khan and Imran Farooq, a representative of Damen Shipyard and SMIT Lamnalco.
Further, Rick said Dutch businesses were planning to invest "hundreds of millions" of dollars in Pakistan mainly in the fields of agribusiness. "We are the world's second largest exporter of agriculture goods (with $17 billion annual production)," the official said adding "a lot" of companies from Netherland, which has a strong presence in Pakistan in the face of big corporate brands like Unilever, Shell, Philips and AxoNobel, were weighing different options to invest in the local dairy processing field.
"A typical Dutch cow daily produces 40 liters of milk compared to Pakistan's 4 liters," he illustrated. Terming the resumption of dairy cattle trade between the two countries in 2014 as a promising development, Rick said bilateral trade volume had surged significantly ever since European Union had awarded the GSP Plus status to Pakistan.
However, the first secretary said Pakistan's failure to comply with international standards on labour safety was a major constraint to Pak-Netherlands trade. Earlier, Chief Executive PBC Ehsan A. Malik told the audience that the compound growth rate of multinational companies (MNCs) like Unilever, Nestle and Philips in Pakistan was far higher than rest of the world. It stood, he said, at 15 percent against world's 4.5 percent for Unilever Pakistan and 19 percent versus zero percent for Nestle over last 10 years.
The PBC chief also dwelt on the country's macroeconomic indicators which, he said, had significantly improved over last couple of years with GDP growth having surged to 4.3 percent, inflation declining to two percent, cost of bank borrowings (discount rate) sliding to 6 percent and fiscal deficit having been arrested at 5.5 percent.
He lauded the present government for taking some bold steps like operation Zarb-e-Azab, staying out of a military conflict in Yemen, bringing the killer of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer to justice, legislating on women protection in Punjab, amicably resolving the PIA's sell-off issue and restoring a "relative peace" in Karachi through Rangers operation. "These are very meaningful achievements in terms of restoring businessmen's confidence," said Malik.
All this, he added, was despite challenges related to energy crises, detrimental environmental impact of energy generation from cheaper fuel like coal, declining narrowly-based exports and tax evasion. "There is a Panama (gate) on every street corner of Pakistan," he said adding that the size of country's informal sector had grown far bigger than the formal one. Only 6000 people, he said, had so far subscribed to FBR's tax amnesty scheme.
The businessman also called for "more transparency" in the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project saying the economic managers at the Ministry of Finance and State Bank of Pakistan should also think of $4.5-5 billion outflows once the multibillion dollar venture started paying back to its investors. Meanwhile, introducing his organisation, Javaid Ashraf of PUM said Dutch consultants, mostly retired government officials, had been guiding SMEs in Pakistan with less than Rs 1 billion annual turnover in the fields ranging from agriculture to electronics goods. CBI, official Rick said, was another Dutch intuitive to promote imports to the EU from the third world countries.
"About 30 small business companies participated in trade fares, which are annually held in Hague, and learnt a lot about how to market their products in the world," Senior Vice President PAAPAM Khan told Business Recorder. Khan, an auto parts manufacturer, said the world's auto parts trade stood at $600 billion. "If supported by the government the local auto sector can make at least $5 billion exports in individual capacity," he said.
Comments
Comments are closed.