KARACHI: Neil Hawkins, Australian High Commissioner in Pakistan, has expressed his willingness to facilitate the promotion of people-to-people, business-to-business and chamber-to-chamber engagements and linkages between the two countries.

Speaking at a meeting of FPCCI, Hawkins specifically expressed his desire to help the country with its flood relief and rehabilitation needs – which is on a never-seen-before scale and requires enormous efforts on a global scale.

Hawkins apprised that 40,000 Pakistani students are studying in Australia and Pakistani diaspora in Australia is increasing in numbers as more and more Pakistanis are opting for immigration to his country.

He also highlighted that Australia is accepting as many as 195,000 skilled immigrants every year from world over.

In a massage FPCCI president Irfan Iqbal Sheikh expressed his concerns that the bilateral trade with a large economy like Australia – having a GDP of approximately $1.4 trillion – remains far below its potential as total trade with Australia is under one billion dollars; and, on top of that, trade deficit with Australia is approximately $400 million.

For any head of FPCCI, it must be a cause of deep consternations and IT & textiles are the two industries which have the potential to exponentially enhance Pakistani exports to Australia, he added.

Mian Anjum Nisar, former President FPCCI, emphasized that managing national food security and efficient agricultural yield per acre are the areas where Pakistan needs to learn and adapt from Australian experiences: their agricultural technologies; protecting crops from natural hazards; their water management practices; crop-mapping; fields-to-market roads & networks; export marketing of agricultural products and state-of-the-art food processing facilities.

Engr. M. A. Jabbar, VP FPCCI, said that Australia should offer swift & easy visa processing to Pakistani businessmen and cooperate in transfer of industrial technology to the country.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022