Businessmen off to Bhutan to attend SAARC meeting

LAHORE: A high-level delegation of private sector on Saturday left for Thimpu, Bhutan to represent Pakistan in the forthcoming 70th executive committee meeting of SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

SAARC CCI president, senior vice presidents and all the eight vice presidents along with members of the executive committee from Pakistan, India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Nepal would participate to get firsthand information about the benefits and opportunities to exploit these to own advantage during and after completion of the CPEC project.

Talking to newsmen prior to the departure, leader of the delegation SAARC CCI vice president Iftikhar Ali Malik said the distinctive features of the CEPC will also be highlighted during the deliberations, besides giving briefing to the participants on regional issues confronting the South Asian countries.

The CPEC would act as a trade bridge between South Asia, Middle East and Europe by building roads, railways and, consequently, the enhance trade potential of the region, he added.

Malik said that CPEC is a geo-economic project, with economic implications not just for China and Pakistan, but will also indirectly benefit other countries, which are not part of the $46 billion investment. This economic corridor will benefit new emerging regional cooperation in South Asia, besides transforming the future of the region, driven by economy and energy, and the building of pipelines and ports with roads and rail infrastructure, he said. The geo-economic dictates suggest maximum radiation of CPEC economic flows in the South Asian region. It would link the two largest economies of the belt, China and India.

“The absence of this link restricts India-China trade to $71 billion and India-Pakistan trade to $2 billion. The absence of the link with India seriously constrains the trade volumes of other SAARC members,” Malik said, adding, “Their dividend would remain limited unless India fully partakes CPEC.” However, Malik said goods from the landlocked Bhutan and Nepal cannot access the Pakistani markets through the shorter land route passing through India. “These countries cannot transit their goods through Pakistan to Central Asia and China. Similarly, Bangladesh cannot access the shorter land route through India to Pakistan and onward to China or West Asia, North Africa and the Gulf states,” he said, adding that the island nations of Maldives and Sri Lanka can of course reach China through Gwadar.