Event showcases business ties between Pakistan and UK

Five million children have benefited from the United Kingdom’s (UK) collaboration with Pakistan in the field of education.

This was disclosed by UK Deputy High Commissioner in Karachi Elin Burns who briefed media persons on business ties between Pakistan and the UK at the Dolmen Mall on Saturday. The programme was titled ‘UK-Pakistan collaboration: smart way of doing things’.

“I am delighted to showcase the fantastic work being done by UK-based companies in Pakistan,” she said. According to Burns, all the projects initiated through collaboration between the governments of Pakistan and UK and those undertaken by the Britain-based companies in Pakistan were not of an ad hoc nature as they were sustainable.

Apart from the British diplomat, the event was also addressed by chief executive officers and heads of various UK-based organisations. Shazad Dada of the Standard Chartered Bank shed light on some of the projects undertaken by the bank under corporate social responsibility. “We have touched one million lives since we started our projects for social welfare,” he said.

Dada informed the gathering that a major focus of the bank was on the youth. There were also programmes for women entrepreneurship, which helped women become self-sufficient and financially independent, he said.

Hafeez Pirzada, head of Glaxo-Smith Kline (GSK), said the GSK had been operating in the Indian subcontinent since the turn of the 19th century. He remarked that his company was the first pharmaceutical company to be quoted on the stock exchange. There were, he said, 650 pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan and the GSK had 16 per cent share in the country’s pharmaceutical market.

Fahad Ashraf of Reckitt Benckiser said his company had been in Pakistan for well over 60 years. He said that they were involved in a project titled ‘Sehat-Safai’ and were reaching out to 60 villages across the country to spread awareness about healthy living.

He said Reckitt Benckiser trained local women to spread the company’s message in their areas, which also exploited the entrepreneurial skills of the women and mitigated unemployment.

Habib Haider of the giant Anglo-Dutch oil multinational, Shell, said that they had been operating in Pakistan for over 60 years. He said Shell was behind the convenience utility stores offering various kinds of consumer items that one finds at petrol pumps.