KARACHI: Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President FPCCI, has appreciated the incessant and collective efforts of the Pakistan-Turkey Joint Business Council (PTJBC) of FPCCI for promoting the trade and economic cooperation between the two brotherly countries.

He also noted, with a sigh of relief, that the bilateral trade volume has crossed the $1.1 billion mark after the stalemate of a decade; which is considered a landmark achievement by FPCCI and the business fraternity.

Suleman Chawla, Senior Vice President FPCCI, has called for facilitating the ECO regional and other sub-regional countries to benefit from the geo-economic dynamics; land-based trade routes and the fruits of complementary economies to alleviate poverty and unemployment.

Amjad Rafi, a veteran business leader; who has served as the Chairman of PTJBC for over two decades collectively; stated the Pakistan’s accession to UN’s TIR Convention has opened the doors for an unprecedented and sustainable growth in trade with Turkey in particular and ECO region in general.

Eyup Yildirim, Commercial Attaché of Turkey, said that Turkey has been investing in the technologies of future like electrical vehicles, renewable energy, avionics & drones, robotics, artificial intelligence, space technologies and advances in agriculture – and, Pakistan can benefit from these industries through cooperation, trade and joint ventures.

He has also welcomed business tourism from Pakistan to strengthen the business-to-business, chamber-to-chamber and people-to-people linkages and mutually-beneficial partnerships.

Bilal Khan Pasha, Consul General of Pakistan in Istanbul, emphasized that the Strategic Economic Framework (SEF) and the forthcoming Free Trade Agreement (FTA) have the potential to make Pakistan-Turkey one of the major economic and trading partners for one another.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022