Pakistan is strategically located at a regional hub with abundant land and natural resources, strong human resources, large and growing domestic market which offers tremendous investment opportunities to countries like Japan. ICCI President Mian Shaukat Masud said this while talking to Pakistan Ambassador-designate to Japan Noor Muhammad Jadmani, who called on him at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI).
"Therefore, Pakistan Embassy in Japan should gear up its efforts for luring Japanese investors to invest in different sectors of Pakistan's economy to reap tremendous benefits", he said. He added that current US $2 billion trade volume between Pakistan and Japan is much lower than it should be. He said Japan is still an unexplored territory for majority of our businessmen and Pakistan Embassy in Japan should play its due role in facilitating frequent exchange of business delegations between the two countries.
Mian Shaukat Masud stressed for the need of improving the approach of our embassy staff in Japan because experience shows that when our businessmen visit Japan on business tours, they don't get satisfactory response from our embassy staff in Japan.
He said that a one-window facility should be established in our embassy in Japan to facilitate Pakistanis in Japan. He hoped that new Ambassador designate to Japan would bring positive change in the behaviour of our staff.
He said that our trade commissions and embassy in Japan also lacks proper information about Pakistan, its economy, infrastructure, investment potential and Pakistani products. "Therefore, efforts should be made to update all information about Pakistan", he said adding that, Pakistani chambers and Pakistani products in Japan would greatly help to improve the trade volume.
He said a lot of the trade is happening indirectly between the two countries and emphasised for enhancing direct trade between Pakistan and Japan to get good benefits. He said many Japanese companies have established assembly plants in Malaysia, Vietnam and other places. He said our embassy in Japan should make efforts to attract these companies to Pakistan as Pakistan offers cheap labour and good investment opportunities.
Speaking on the occasion, Noor Muhammad Jadmani, Ambassador designate to Japan thanked ICCI President and other businessmen for giving useful suggestions to improve the working of Pakistan Embassy in Japan and to enhance trade relations with Japan.
He assured them that he would take all possible steps to facilitate Pakistani businessmen in enhancing bilateral trade with Japan. He said his purpose of meeting with businessmen before going to Japan was to get their input for improving Pak-Japan business relations.
He said efforts were already afoot by Pak-Japan Business Council to enhance trade relations. He said Pakistan Embassy in Japan will also take all necessary measures to enhance direct interaction between the business communities of the two countries so that they could explore areas of common interest to boost business ties. He assured local business community of his full co-operation on their business visits to Japan.