Pak-Turk corporate sectors: Gilani for facilitative frameworks to encourage joint ventures

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani Tuesday stressed the need for Pakistan and Turkey to develop facilitative frameworks to encourage corporate sector joint ventures through financing the commercially viable projects and also developing institutional frameworks of co-operation for their implementation.
Co-chairing the first plenary session of High Level Co-operation Council along with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Gilani said the effective and timely implementation of the projects was the key to reaching shared objectives. Gilani said the High Level Co-operation Council was, indeed, the highest institutional linkage that Pakistan and Turkey had with any country.
"The HLCC, I am sure, can provide us with a unique platform to enter into a long-term, mutually beneficial comprehensive partnership yielding tangible results," he said. The Prime Minister proposed the establishment of joint working groups in the important areas of defence and security, energy, trade and economic co-operation.
"We would also like to develop bilateral consultative mechanisms to ensure that the programmes and projects identified during the bilateral ministerial meetings today or in the future, remain under a sharp focus and possible snags or delays in their implementation and completion, are obviated," he said. The Prime Minister hoped that the partnership concept institutionalised under HLCC will lead to win-win outcomes.
The Prime Minister said Pakistan takes great pride in its cordial fraternal relations with Turkey and was determined to build upon this rich reservoir of goodwill enshrined in the Pak-Turk historic ties, to take them to new heights.
He thanked for the generous contributions of the Turkish government and the brotherly people for the affected people of recent floods in Pakistan. He also mentioned the visit of Madam Emine Erdogan in the aftermath of the devastating floods and termed it a manifestation of that brotherhood which touched the hearts of millions of Pakistanis. Gilani appreciated Turkey's valuable support for Pakistan's principled stance on Kashmir dispute and for Turkey's contribution and active role to the process of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan.
Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Petroleum Minister Syed Naveed Qamar, Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar, Water and Power Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Railways Minister Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and their Turkish counterparts attended the HLCC meeting.