MULTAN City News

Pakistan doesn’t want to upgrade PSM, powerhouses: envoy
Says Russia great admirer of Quaid-i-Azam, Faiz Ahmad Faiz
From Our Correspondent
MULTAN: Russian Ambassador Alexey Yurivich Dedov has called for strengthening Pak-Russian bilateral relations because Russia has been a great admirer of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
Addressing the Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry executive committee members here on Wednesday, he offered arranging trade meetings between Pakistani and Russian businessmen to boost the trade. He said that the Pakistani businessmen should explore untapped Russian market for their products. He said that the two countries should take sector specific measures to enhance mutual trade that did not reflect the existing potential. He said that Russia had a lot to offer to the Pakistani businessmen. He said that Pakistani and Russian businessmen could enter into joint ventures to benefit each other in their respective businesses and take the level of bilateral trade to new heights with a little sector-specific effort. To a question, the ambassador said that Muzaffargarh and Jamshoro thermal power stations were generating 30 per cent electricity. He said: “We are ready to modernise the units besides modernising the Pakistan Steel Mills but the government is not ready to increase efficiencies of the units because it is going towards the privatisation.”
He said that the financial assistance could not be provided to the private sector, it was given to the government by the government. He, however, said that they were ready to do business with the private sector. He said that they had given $2 billion financial assistance to the government for the energy sector. The ambassador said that they had opened gates for the Pakistani businessmen and a branch of the National Bank of Pakistan was being established in Moscow.
Speaking on the occasion, Lahore Honorary Consul Habib Ahmad said that Russia was establishing trade centres in Multan, Sialkot and Lahore to facilitate the buyers.
Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Mian Iqbal Hassan said that south Punjab was a central part of Pakistan as it produced about 82 per cent cotton. The area also produced quality mangoes, oranges and vegetables, he added. He said that the Russian businessmen could collaborate with them in the agriculture sector by launching joint ventures. He said that the country had been trapped in the energy crisis and it needed assistance and help for low cost power generation from local coal but the US and Europe were not interested to transfer the technology, saying that it would damage environment. Russian Trade Representative Yuri Cozlove and others also spoke on the occasion.