ICCI to hold award ceremony in Malaysia next month

Islamabad: Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) will host 2nd Business Opportunities Conference-(BOC) and Awards Ceremony at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on June 26-27, 2019.

While giving an interview to ‘The News’, Ahmed Hassan Mughal, President, ICCI was full of hope and a positive outcome of the event, as last year ICCI had successful event at Istanbul, Turkey.

ICCI president said that Pakistan and Malaysia governments have signed Free Trade Agreement and both sides are taking measures to increase the bilateral trade. Malaysia also has FTA with India, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, and Turkey.

“Pakistan and Malaysia have signed a double taxation avoidance agreement in 1980, which facilitates the exporters of both countries,” he added. Ahmed Hassan told this scribe that Malaysia’s main industries were rubber, oil palm processing and manufacturing, petroleum and natural gas, light manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, medical technology, electronics and semiconductors, timber processing; logging and agriculture processing.

He said that Malaysia was one of Pakistan’s traditional trade partners. The major exports of Pakistan to Malaysia include cereals, chemicals, seafood, and textile while its major imports from Malaysia include Palm oils, Chemicals, Electrical and Electronic products.

He told that Pakistan and Malaysia were enhancing collaboration in various fields including telecommunication, information technology, and power generation, besides bolstering cooperation in agriculture, banking, and energy sectors. Both sides have agreed on the Partial Abolition of Visa Requirement for Diplomatic and Official Passport holders, through an agreement that was signed between the two countries during visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan in November last year.

President ICCI said that Pakistan can increase its presence in the South East Asian region by developing close defence cooperation with Malaysia by exporting JF-17 Thunder jets and anti-tank missiles. Malaysia has also shown great interest in acquiring JF-17 Thunder jets from Pakistan and the estimated amount the signed deals is estimated to be $900 million.

Appreciating the Jang Group, ICCI president said that Jang Media Group, one the biggest and credible media groups of the country was playing a positive role for the development of Pakistan.

He said Jang Media Group is official media partner of 2nd Business Opportunities Conference-BOC and Awards Ceremony at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He said in future ICCI would have more cooperation with Jang Group.

Talking about the Business Opportunities Conference-BOC and Awards Ceremony in Malaysia President ICCI said that it is an initiative to bring together the private sectors of Pakistan and Malaysia at one platform and to provide them an opportunity to interact with each other to explore possibilities of business collaboration.

He told that in June 2018 ICCI had successfully organized BOC and Awards Ceremony at Istanbul, Turkey that proved a landmark initiative in building B2B relations between Pakistan and Turkey. Around 500 businessmen from both sides participated in the event and held useful business meeting in areas of the business interest. Ahmed Hassan said that the initiative of second BOC and Awards Ceremony in Malaysia would enable the private sectors of Pakistan and Malaysia to interact with each other, exchange ideas, share experiences, strengthen business linkages and explore new areas of mutual collaboration.

ICCI President said that Malaysia has very good experience in tourism industry, while Pakistan has a tremendous tourism potential. Collaborative investment in tourism Industry could be highly beneficial for both countries. Pakistan is offering great incentives for investment in tourism sector and Malaysian investors have good opportunity to take full benefit of these incentives that would at the same time help Pakistan to boost its tourism industry.

ICCI president has invited all the business community of federal capital to come forward, join the event and meet with your Malaysian counterparts.