The common man in Pakistan is losing faith in Chinese products, as the quality of Chinese goods supplied to Pakistan is not of international standard, Vice-President Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry Iftikhar Ali Malik, said.
While talking to a delegation of Chinese Council for the promotion of international Trade-Yunan Sub-Council, which led by its Vice-Chairman Ms Huang Shan met him in Lahore, Iftikhar Ali Malik told the Chinese delegation that the Chinese South Asia Business Forum must look into the aspect of supply of inferior Chinese goods to Pakistan.
He said that Chinese investors need to accelerate their efforts for setting up joint ventures in Pakistan in engineering products, autoparts and automobile, exploration of hidden wealth and improvement of infrastructure particularly in energy and water supply projects.
It may be noted that there is high demand for Chinese goods in Pakistani market. Their experience of growth in trade is positive due to convenient trade flows and openness measures. Trade and investment policies are liberal since 80s' and generally WTO compliant.
Malik further said that Pakistan should also be made member of Shanghai Co-operation Organisation to expand its trade to the Central Asian States. He further said that Pakistan has long relations with China, but our economic co-operation and trade is not up to the desired level. He said that China should help Pakistan to develop products that could be exported to China to improve the trade balance.
Iftikhar Ali Malik further said that Guard Group is trading with China and is one of the biggest importers of steel from China. 'We are also importing machinery for auto filter and agriculture sector combine harvesters,' he said. He said that research is also being carried out with the help of China in BT cotton and maize to improve yield of these crops.
He said that major imports from China are machinery, chemicals, garments and other textile products, stationery, construction materials like tiles, sanitary wares and crockery, etc. Machinery and electrical appliances are the major parts of overall exports. The balance is, however, in favour of China due to lesser exports by Pakistan.
Malik said that Pakistan enjoys huge export potential to China due to advantages in agriculture, mineral, chemical, textile and leather products. Besides, Pakistan has comparative advantage in oil seeds, fruits, base metals, plastic goods etc. He said China and Pakistan have witnessed steady growth in mutual investments in recent years.
A large number of Chinese companies are working in Pakistan in oil and gas, IT and telecom, power generation, engineering, automobiles, infrastructure and mining sectors.
These include names like, ZTE, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, China National Machinery Imp/Exp Corporation, Meta-llurgical Construction Corpo-ration of China, China International Water and Electric Corporation, China Petroleum and Haier.
Malik said there are possibilities of active co-operation in the sectors like oil and gas, mining, financial sector, infrastructure, power (coal, hydel, gas based) IT and telecom, chemicals, fertiliser, glass, polymers, textile manufacture (value added), engineering goods, textile machinery, assembling of automobiles, electronics, auto motives, agricultural implements, agricultural and agro-based industry, food and fruit processing and packaging, livestock and dairy farming and pesticides.