The trade between Britain and Pakistan is very encouraging at the moment. British High Commissioner to Pakistan Mark Lyall Grant stated this here on Monday night.
He pointed out the UK exports to Pakistan in first six months of this year were significantly up by 20 per cent than the last year. Despite that overall trade balance was still in Pakistan's favour, the UK envoy added.
He said Britain was the only one of Pakistan's major trading partners where the balance of trade was actually in Pakistan's favour.
"That situation is very encouraging", the British High Commissioner remarked.
He pointed out Costa Coffee, UK firm, has opened its first outlet in Karachi. That was the first of a number of outlets planned to open in Pakistan.
The envoy described this as a sign of investors' confidence in Pakistan' s economy at the moment. He said a number of trade missions, and politicians from UK were scheduled to visit Pakistan.
Lyall Grant said they have been sending a number of Pakistani students to Britain in the recent weeks and have issued more than 4,500 student visas.
He rebutted some of the news stories that appeared in a section of press here about the visa service being restricted and added the reverse has actually happened and the UK has expanded visa service since 7/7.
"The quality of service we are now offering is the best we were able to provide in Pakistan in the last four to five years," the UK envoy remarked.
About the travel advisory, he said that that was for the British people coming to Pakistan. "We keep the travel advisory under constant review", he further stated.
Lyall Grant said Britain has eased travel advisory strategically twice in last two year and explained that two years ago, the travel advice did not come to Pakistan. We then changed it to say: "Come to Pakistan when you have a reason to come but do not come for tourism."
Then again we changed the travel advisory to say: "You can come to Pakistan for business or tourism but need to take care of your security", he added.