UK working to increase investment, trade with Pakistan: British Diplomat

Lahore: Deputy High Commissioner and Trade Director for Pakistan Sarah Mooney on Wednesday said UK was working to increase trade and investment in Pakistan so that the country could achieve the place it should have.

She said that the High Commission is researching to identify those products which can get significant success in the UK’s market and after identifying those products, we would come back to Pakistan’s business community.

She was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry. LCCI President Kashif Anwar and Senior Vice President Chaudhry Zafar Mahmood also spoke on the occasion while Executive Committee Members were also present.

The Deputy High Commissioner said that the floods caused devastation and disaster for Pakistan and she was very encouraged to see that British citizens had contributed around 100 million pounds for the flood relief efforts. British government had a disaster relief fund and the UK citizens are contributing in that fund.

She said they had 96% duty free products coming from Pakistan and are working on the rest. She said that education is our priority area where we want to collaborate with Pakistani institutions and enhance cooperation and we are also keen to support education below university level. The other which we are interested in are sustainable growth, green energy and infrastructure development. Lastly, the healthcare is our other priority area.

She said that they must go forward to change the style of partnership between Pakistan and United Kingdom which should be a genuine partnership where we bring investment and expertise to Pakistan and to take benefit from the expertise in Pakistan.

LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that Lahore Chamber always attached great value to working relations with British High Commission for the sake of exploring ways to further strengthen the bilateral ties.

He said that United Kingdom has been one of the major trading partners of Pakistan and is currently the fourth largest export market for Pakistani products. According to the State Bank of Pakistan statistics, Pakistan’s Exports to UK were around 2.2 Billion Dollars in 2021-22 as compared to around 2 Billion Dollars in 2020-21. On the other hand, our imports from UK were 869 million dollars in 2021-22 as compared to 780 million dollars in 2020-21.

“Pakistan’s exports to UK are dominated heavily by textiles. We are of the view that the bilateral trade volume which currently stands around 3 Billion Dollars should be taken to at least 10 billion dollars”, he added.