Muhammad Rafiq Memon, Founder Chairman, Pakistan Southern Africa Trade Federation (PSATF), has said that Pakistani industrialists and traders must come to the fore to fill the existing trade gap with Africa.
Africa is a vast sea of trade with exports of trillions of dollars, he said.
By inaugurating the Pak-Africa Trade Center in March, it is providing a well-equipped platform to the Pakistani chambers and business community in South Africa.
He informed that after the Rawalpindi Chamber, we will also sign a MoU with the Islamabad Chamber to increase bilateral trade.
Memon expressed these views while addressing a zoom meeting of Pakistan Southern Africa Trade Federation and Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa Adnan Javed was also present at the meeting while the Islamabad Chamber was represented by the newly elected President and Chief Executive Officer Sardar Yasir Ilyas along with Vice President Abdul Rehman Khan.
Muhammad Rafiq Memon said that the purpose of PSATF was to increase business between Pakistan and South Africa.
For the first time in history, trade delegations and industrialists from Pakistan came to South Africa and got access to the local market from the platform of Pakistan Southern Africa Trade Federation, he said. Following the successful trade seminar in South Africa, it is now planned to hold Single Country Exhibition and Trade Seminar-1.
“Our aim is to introduce Pakistani products in the African market so that those who sell our products under their own name are discouraged,” he said.
He offered the members of the Islamabad Chamber to become members of the PSATF Trade Center.
He invited the President and other members of the Islamabad Chamber to attend the inauguration of the Trade Center in March and said that besides South Africa, trade attaché and trade representatives from seven or eight neighboring African countries would also be present on the occasion. This will be a great opportunity for Pakistani manufacturers to launch their products across the African market.
Islamabad Chamber President Sardar Yasir Ilyas thanked the Pakistan Southern Africa Trade Federation for convening the zoom meeting and congratulated the establishment of a trade center in South Africa.
"Our goal is the same," he said.
He said that under the Look Africa policy, the present Pakistani government has focused on the African continent and as a result, exports have increased by 15 percent.
PSATF Secretary General Saleem Abdul Shakoor said that South Africa is the gateway to Africa and entering here means entry into the whole of Africa.
We are sitting here overseas and supporting the Pakistani government, traders and the local business community, he said. Soon, the Pak-Africa Trade Center will be operational here, which will greatly benefit Pakistan's Look Africa policy.