Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) President, Jalil Ahmad Malik, said Pakistan and China could benefit greatly by setting up a joint chamber of commerce and industry, which could serve as a forum for exchange of vital trade information on the private sector level.
"Such institutional linkages will help facilitating mutual understanding between the trading communities of the two countries", Jalil Malik said on Thursday while talking to Siddiq-ur-Rehman Rana, consultant to Ministry of Commerce to formulate strategy regarding the trade, protecting local industry, relocation of industry and JV from China.
He said that China had always given financial and technical assistance for some of the major projects in Pakistan. "Pakistan is receiving Chinese assistance for the development of health, education, sports and culture and the Chinese system of medicine and surgery is already being used in some of the government hospitals in Pakistan", he added.
He said it was the time now to set a stage and provide an infrastructure for strong trade relations between the two countries in future and private sector has to play an important role in this connection.
He identified that development of infrastructure, irrigation, roads, banking, small and medium industries, shipping and airlines, technical and managerial consultancy are the some areas in which further co-operation between the two countries could take place.
Speaking on the occasion, Siddiq-ur-Rehman Rana said that they had outlined the strategy by harmonising the public, private point of view. "We have consulted the private sector, policy makers and Chinese ministry of commerce and chambers", he added.
He said there were great opportunities and challenges from Chinese market. He predicted that all sectors of industry could come under pressure from fast expanding Chinese and Indian economies in the coming years.
In the end, he gave detailed presentation on scope of Chinese market.