KARACHI: Ambassador of Bulgaria Irena Gancheva has said that the third session of Joint Economic Commission between Bulgaria and Pakistan was being planned to be held either later this year or may be at the beginning of next year in the city of Sofia which would surely help in developing and further strengthening the trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.
Exchanging views at a meeting during her visit to the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI), the Bulgarian envoy added: “The third session of Joint Economic Commission was supposed to take place in Sofia in 2020-21 but it could not materialize due to Covid-19 pandemic. However, we are working on holding this important session later this year or next year”.
Irena Gancheva, who was on her first-ever visit to Karachi, stressed the need to raise awareness amongst the representatives of business communities of both countries about the possibilities which can only be made possible business delegation were regularly being exchanged and direct contacts were being encouraged.
“Of course, during the last three years, Covid created a lot of challenges and unfortunately physical exchange of delegations was not possible but now its time to focus on exchange of trade delegations so that trade volume could be improved”, she said, adding that exchange of government and business delegations adds a lot of good momentum and create opportunities for the two countries to sit together and discuss specific areas of cooperation.
She said that Bulgaria and Pakistan share traditionally good relations with a strong history of 57 years of diplomatic relations and no bilateral issues. Touching upon some important areas of trade cooperation, she mentioned that the agriculture, dairy products and also the IT sector were very perspective areas of cooperation.
“There is a huge potential to enhance trade cooperation through economic diplomacy”.
She informed that Bulgarian Agricultural Academy and Pakistan Agricultural Research Council have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate in research.
Bulgarian envoy also extended full support and cooperation to Karachi Chamber in improving ties with respective institutions in Bulgaria including Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Small & Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency and others government and private institutions.
Earlier, President KCCI Muhammad Idrees, while welcoming the ambassador, stressed that Pakistan and Bulgaria need to work a lot on improving the existing bilateral trade which was too low as Pakistan exported goods worth $ 35.62 million only to Bulgaria in 2020 whereas the imports from Bulgaria stood at $27.86 million.
“There are a number of commodities in which the two countries can enhance trade by focusing on those commodities which both the countries have been trading with other countries but not with each other”.
He mentioned that in 2020, Bulgaria imported $ 165.17 million worth of copper-related articles in the form of cathodes and billets from countries such as Austria, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey. During the same year, Pakistan exported $ 321.39 million of this commodity mainly to China and Belgium but unfortunately, Pakistan and Bulgaria were not trading this particular commodity.
“Other potential commodities for trade between Bulgaria and Pakistan included medicaments for therapeutic or prophylactic uses, tractors and their parts, taps, valves and similar appliances, insecticides, furniture, flat-rolled products of iron, food preparations, electric accumulators, polymers of ethylene, self-propelled bulldozers, preparations used in animal feeding and various others”, he added.
He was of the opinion that there was a great potential for mutually beneficial cooperation between the Bulgarian and Pakistani companies in the field of food processing industry particularly for production of yogurt, cheese, rosewater and other fragrances.
“Bulgaria can be a feasible re-export destination for Pakistani companies as it is the closest EU country by land proximity. Similarly, Pakistan can be a great re-export destination for Bulgarian companies looking to target East Asian and African countries especially from the port of Gwadar”.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022