Korean Ambassador to Pakistan Song Jong Hwan on Wednesday said that Pakistan has all the required ingredients to grow like China. In a meeting at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), he said in 1980, China was exactly like Pakistan and today it has become the economic giant of the world. "I am sure that 10 years down the line, Pakistan would be a shining star on the world economic horizon," the diplomat said.
He was hopeful that the volume of trade between Pakistan and South Korea was bound to increase as both the governments are taking measures to get the desired results. He called for a proper sector-specific strategy to identify the challenges and problems coming in the way of bilateral trade between Pakistan and Korea.
While identifying numerous areas for mutual cooperation, he said there was a need for expertise-sharing as both the countries have a lot to learn from each other and he urged the Lahore Chamber to arrange a business delegation to South Korea so that Pakistani businessmen could have firsthand knowledge about opportunities there.
Lahore Chamber President Ijaz A. Mumtaz said, "Korea is an important trading partner of Pakistan. South Korea is the second biggest export destination of Pakistan in East Asia after China. It comes at 14th place among the top importing countries and at 16th place among the top exporting countries for Pakistan. The total volume of trade between Pakistan and Korea was around dollar 1.26 billion in 2013 but in the following year, it came down to almost dollar 1 billion."
It was mainly because of the substantial decrease in imports from Korea in last two years. He said that the imports dropped from dollar 859 million to dollar 658 million. Likewise, Pakistan's exports also fell from dollar 397 million to dollar 378 million in the same period. He said although the worth of bilateral trade was still above one billion dollar but there was a plenty of margin to improve it. It seriously calls for making joint efforts.
"The way different Korean companies are gaining success in Pakistan that day is not far away when Korea will outclass other countries in terms of foreign direct investment. We are ready to facilitate new Korean companies to study the market conditions in Pakistan", he added. He said Korea had already declared Pakistan as a priority destination for investment and business in recent meetings with business community. He said that the success stories of leading Korean business groups in Pakistan like Daewoo, Samsung, LG and Hyundai etc can serve as a strong reference to other Korean companies to invest here.
He said the forums like KOTRA Karachi could also play pivotal role in searching new business opportunities and building economic partnership between Korea and Pakistan in various fields. He said considering the size of Korean economy which was one of the trillion economies of the world and also ranked among the twenty largest economies, Pakistan can benefit by way of developing trade and economic relations with Korea.
"The quickest way to achieve the desired objective is to highlight the need of diversifying product lines of both countries through mobilising business forums, exchanging business delegations and participating in each other's exhibitions. For that purpose, market surveys and latest trends prevailing in both the countries must be gathered and shared with the representatives of private sectors," he added.
"A lot of development work is going on with respect to the Pak-China Economic Corridor. This project will cause to take place a lot of changes in political and economic scenario of Pakistan. Korea should forecast the newer opportunities which really promise good fortunes to foreign investors," he said.