French Ambassador Pierre Charasse has urged the Pakistan-France Business Alliance (PFBA) to promote a real image of Pakistan in his country.
Addressing the 12th annual general meeting of PFBA at a local hotel, Charasse, who is also patron-in-chief of the alliance, said the goal should be achieved by joint efforts of the members of alliance and the French diplomats by the end of this year.
Unfortunately, the memories of the killings of French technicians about two years ago in a terrorist activity still haunted the French business, who hesitated to come to Pakistan, he said.
Charasse said the insurance companies were reluctant to cover the risk of Pakistan and the ranking of Pakistan by credit export agencies was low.
The perception of Pakistan in the European Union (EU) and France was that the place was not very good not for economic reasons but for other reasons, including security reasons.
He referred to the media reports on terrorism, proliferation, insufficient democracy, situation of women, which elaborated this negative picture.
He said that before taking his assignment in Islamabad, he met the French businessmen, who were keen to know about the great investment opportunities in this country and the liberalised policies of the government towards the private sector.
Referring to high level exchange of visits between the two countries, including the visits of President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali to France and recent visit of the French Foreign Minister to Islamabad, he said that tow countries enjoyed excellent traditional relations not only in political field, but also in the spheres of trade, culture, education and defence.
He said that the French Foreign Minister, recognising Pakistan's nuclear capability, lauded its commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.
"Pakistan is an important country of Asia and has great potential for development.
France is the third largest business partner of Pakistan and despite the present move of anti-dumping duty on its bed linen exports, absorbs 30 percent of its exports, which is more than the total of US and Japan," he said.
He said that French companies were keen to enter into private public partnership in Pakistan in the fields of hi-tech industries, construction, communications, agro-food industry, oil and gas, transpiration and environment.
The Ambassador said that the trade balance between the two countries over the last five years had recorded a surplus in favour of Pakistan. In 2003 this surplus amounted to euro 196 million.
To help boost trade exchanges between the two countries, the Ambassador assured the audience that the government had decided to fully reactivate the French Consulate General in Karachi and a new Consul General would arrive here next month.
Among the EU members, France today was the eighth customer of Pakistan and the third EU supplier of Pakistan just after the UK and Italy.
He expressed the hope that the French presence in Pakistan would be increased with the joint efforts of the alliance members and the new commercial team of the French Embassy.
He lauded the opening of the Northern Chapter of the PFBA in Lahore last week.
Earlier, PFBA President Amin Hashwani gave an account of the alliance activities during the last year, which included participation in investment conference held in Paris last July, launching of help desk, link up with the Paris Chamber of Commerce and launching of an electronic newsletter.
The membership of the alliance, he said, had increased considerably.
Also present at the meeting were Abdul Kader Jaffer, founder of the alliance, and Shabbir Ahmed, Senior Vice-President of the alliance.