A delegation of British High Commission, comprising Political Secretary Ben Stride, Ms Ireen William, Ms Tasha and Naveed Ahmed visited Multan city on Tuesday and met the president of Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI), Shahid Naseem Khokhar.
The MCCI president said that liberal and most transparent economic, trade, investment, privatisation and other policies had generated interest and have boosted the confidence of the foreign investors. He said that different factors like high mark-up, terrorism and energy crisis had badly hit Pakistan's economy which caused suspension of foreign investment in all sectors.
He said that 100 British companies were operating in various sectors of Pakistan's economy and it was encouraging to note that they had indicated to further expand their operations to strengthen the existing economic, investment and trade relations of both the countries, Shahid said. Hs said that southern Punjab is an important zone of Pakistan, which produces 80 percent of total cotton production and contributes in wheat and sugarcane production.
He lauded the interest of UK government and investors in the economic activity of Pakistan, terming it encouraging, and assured the visiting team that Pakistan is in the process of further improving its competitiveness and facilitation arrangements for the foreign investors.
The leader of the delegation Ben Stride said that in future a number of British business and trade delegations were scheduled to visit Pakistan to benefit from the attractive investment opportunities in financial, healthcare, oil & gas, power, insurance, education and other sectors as the visit would focus to seek expansion of trade relations with Pakistan and to explore new avenues and opportunities for investment in the country. He said that his country is trying best to help Pakistan get access to EU market which is a critical issue.
"We are trying to get EU trade concession of GSP Plus for Pakistan to get more Pakistani products would be introduced into Europe", he said. "For this, we need to thicken political relations, improve people to people contacts and invite British businessmen to invest in Pakistan", he said.
Ben Stride said that Pakistan has easiest business environment in the region but UK's SMEs sector is still reluctant to invest here which would be only possible if local business community extend co-operation. He said that British exporters were not as aggressive as their Pakistani counterparts. "This has resulted in increasing share of trade in favour of the Pakistan", he said.
He said that he was inviting British investors to explore energy, super markets and other promising sectors. MCCI President said Pakistan was being deprived of due rights while other countries like Bangladesh were getting concessions. He agreed to explore business exchange programmes and assured support in upgrading the trade activities. Later, he briefed the delegation about the Prime Minister's development package, locally manufactured products, handicrafts and agriculture.