Trade Commissioner of Italian Trade Agency (ITA) Gianpaolo Bruno has said that Pakistan's population of more than 200 million clearly indicates huge potential that needs to be exploited; therefore, the business communities of Pakistan and Italy should work for enhancing the existing trade figures.
""We need to do more to improve the existing bilateral trade relations between Pakistan and Italy," he said, speaking at a meeting of Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI)
The ITA commissioner identified several areas of trade and investment cooperation, saying immense opportunities for enhancing cooperation between Pakistan and Italy exist in different sectors, including capital goods, consumer goods, machineries, medical and pharmaceutical sectors and fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs), etc.
Bruno said there are many ways where both business communities could partner and generate values for their people. He said Pakistan needs to upgrade its food value chain and improve the quality of Pakistani food in order to enhance its exports to the European market where stringent regulations in terms of quality were being followed.
Commenting on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), he said that Pakistan needs to uplift the quality of economic development if it wishes to achieve the target of Vision 2030 for the energy sector. "Italy can cooperate in both conventional and renewable energy projects which will result in strengthening the energy generation capacity of Pakistan from not just oil and gas resources but also from non-conventional sources such solar, wind and hydro power," he said, citing that Italy has strong knowledge, expertise and skills in all these sectors.
Bruno said that Pakistan relies on Indus basin water system that sometimes was not enough for the country's prominent agricultural sector; hence, it requires investment and mechanisation. He said that they could also provide Italian companies who could collaborate for mechanisation of the agricultural sector that is very vital to enrich this sector and add value to the agricultural products to be exported to Italy and other European countries.
"Italy has been importing textile, apparel, leather goods and surgical tools from Pakistan but the country needs Italian machinery to upgrade and uplift the quality of its finished goods," he said, adding that Italy requires high quality products. The ITA commissioner said that his country also needs good chemical products and also specialised textile products for sports which could be imported from Pakistan.
He further informed that they were setting up three technological centres equipped with Italian machinery of which one project was being set up in Lahore where Italian leather machinery was being installed in collaboration with local shoe manufacturing association. Moreover, another technological centre is being established in Faisalabad which will be equipped with Italian textile machinery in collaboration with National Textile University while the third technological park is being developed for stone machinery in collaboration with Pakistan Stone Development Company (PASDEC). "We are transferring machinery from Italy to Pakistan in order to train the local people on how to operate the sophisticated Italian machinery which, at first, is also good for your economy and secondly, we are also promoting Italian machinery through this initiative," he said.
Bruno said that the Italian Trade Agency in Karachi was being administered by deputy trade commissioner ITA A.R Daudpota which was providing services to Italian companies and facilitating them on how to enter the Pakistani market.
The Italian trade commissioner expressed desire of having a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Karachi Chamber and Italian Trade Agency with a view to create a strong liaison and improve connectivity between the two institutions, which was agreed by KCCI president Junaid Esmail Makda who shared a copy of a draft MoU with the Trade Commissioner.
Speaking on the occasion, Makda stated that Pakistan and Italy share healthy and dynamic bilateral relations. "Italy has great economic potential and increasing bilateral trade and cooperation with Pakistan in diversified areas of economic activity that will help both the countries," he said, noting that Italian investments in Pakistan have also been growing and a great example was the oil exploration giant ENI who was very active in Pakistan.
KCCI president said it was heartening to see that the two countries recently signed an inter-governmental agreement on cooperation in the field of LNG and MoU on cooperation between the trade development authorities of the two countries in the field of marble mining, leather and denim clothing.
He appreciated support extended by Italy from time to time. He said that Italy provided Pakistan $100 million under the Pakistan Italian Debt for Development Swap Agreement to social development projects in health, education and sanitation in Pakistan.
Makda noted they also agreed to provide a credit line equivalent to $10 billion for Italian investors willing to invest in Pakistan which the business community of Karachi Chamber warmly welcomes as such initiatives would bring the business communities of both countries more close to each other.
"Pakistan can benefit from Italian supremacy in the leather industry to boost its own value added production in the sector," he said, adding that Italy could explore huge investment opportunities in Pakistan's marble and mineral sectors while the time is also ideal to invest in the automobile sector.
He said they want to promote and fully facilitate Italian investment in Pakistan and do everything for the development of Pakistan-Italian business cooperation.
Deputy Commissioner ITA, Daudpota and KCCI managing committee members and others attended the meeting.
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