Call to enhance Pakistan-Australia trade ties

We need to broaden the range of products we trade in to give a fillip to our bilateral trade in order to rationalise the balance of payments situation and give impetus to each others’ trade potential. 

This exhortation was made by Margaret Adamson, the Australian High Commissioner in Pakistan, while speaking at a dinner gathering held in her honour by the Pakistan-Australia Business Forum (PABF) at a local hotel on Thursday.

She underscored the need for further increasing the interaction between the trade communities of both the countries, remarking that things were progressing in the right direction. “It could not be denied that things are progressing in the right direction.”

She went out of her way to pinpoint Pakistan’s tourism potential and said that a vast territory featuring all kinds of diverse terrain, Pakistan was an ideal tourist’s paradise. She said it could hold massive attraction for Australian tourists with the required foreign exchange accruing to Pakistan through this activity.

“Both countries can look forward to an exciting 2017,” remarked Adamson.

Australia, she said, could render valuable service in the agriculture and dairy products sector.

Adamson said there was a plan whereby Australia was to train 2,500 Pakistani cotton farmers. She also highlighted the role of the Australian mining sector.

Adamson said this sector would be highly interested in investing in Pakistan’s mining sector. The high commissioner said Pakistani products like mangoes and textiles had a great scope in Australia. Leonie Muldoon, minister (Commercial) of the Government of Australia, has also flown in.

She said Pakistan was just a right place to invest in and in this context she mentioned the meat and agricultural products industry.

Similarly, she said, Pakistani youth could benefit from the Australian education.

Talking to The News, she said the current volume of trade between the two countries was to the tune of 6.50 million dollars, with the balance of payments tilting in favour of Australia. She said there was lots of potential to enhance the trade and rationalise the balance of payments. In this context, she mentioned commodities like rice and spices which, she said, had a potential market in Australia

Earlier, PABF Chairman Pervez Haroon Madraswala, while welcoming the high commissioner, said there was a particular scope for marketing of Pakistan exports like mangoes.

He said the young people of Pakistan could benefit a lot in the field of sports through a greater exchange of sports personalities as Australia had been a highly sports-minded nation.

He also highlighted the education and mining sectors where, he said, Australian cooperation would be highly fruitful.