Indonesian envoy for enhancing bilateral ties in trade, culture fields

FAISALABAD: Indonesian Ambassador to Pakistan Iwan Suyudhie Amri has said that academic, research, agriculture, food and trade ties between Indonesia and Pakistan will be further strengthened in future to get benefit from each other experiences.

He was talking to University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf and students during his visit to the National Institute of Food Science and Technology UAF on Monday.

Faculty of Food, Nutrition and Home Sciences UAF Dean Dr Masood Sadiq Butt and NIFSAT DG Dr Nuzhat Huma and others were also present. The ambassador stressed the need to enhance bilateral relations particularly in the fields of trade, culture, education and people-to-people contacts.

He said that palm oil production was important to economy of Indonesia as the country was one of the biggest exporters. He said that Indonesian Bogor Agricultural University and University of Agriculture Faisalabad would further enhance research an academic ties to boost the academic and industrial linkages.

He said that both countries had the similarities in the culture and way of living. He said that Pakistan had been producing one of the best mangoes and rice and his county was importing it. He said that share of the Indonesian agriculture sector in the Gross Domestic Product was near to Pakistani share of agriculture sector to GDP.

Dr Muhammad Ashraf said that Indonesia and Pakistan’s relations would help address the common challenges and to get benefit from each other experiences. He said that Indonesia and Pakistan cemented educational and research relations would pave the way for the development and uplift. He said that the academia- industry strengthened ties would help raise income of people and way of living and to meet the challenges of the modern era.

He urged the researches to work on the real issues of the common man. He said that the food security was one of major concerns for both countries. He said that like Pakistan, Indonesia was also focusing on agricultural country.

Dean Faculty of Food, Nutrition and Home Sciences Dr Masood Sadiq Butt said that the UAF in collaboration with Indonesia particularly food industry would pave the way for further the prosperity. He added that his faculty was coming up with out-of-the-box solutions to the problems of the industry and common man.

Pasha elected PTEA chairman: Industrialist Sohail Pasha was elected chairman of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) for the year 2019/20.

Faisal Nisar of Karachi was elected senior vice chairman and Haris Yusuf as vice chairman. The names of new office-bearers of the PTEA were announced at the Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Addressing the AGM, outgoing chairman Khurram Mukhtar congratulated the new office-bearers and expressed hope that they would resolve problems confronted by the textile exporters pertaining to their decreasing exports and stuck-up of their Duty Draw Back Claims worth billions of rupees with the government.

He urged the minister for textiles to convene a meeting of the PTEA office-bearers to chalk-out a comprehensive policy to boost the textile exports as soon as possible.

He further demanded the government to pay back all the duty-draw-back claims to cloth exporters, enabling them to re-invest the amount in boosting the textile exports to foreign countries and thus help in re-capturing the lost foreign markets captured by our contemporary countries like India, Bangladesh and China.

potato cultivation: Growers have been advised to start cultivation of potato immediately and complete it by mid of October to get bumper yield.

A spokesman for the Agriculture (Extension) Department said here Monday that potato is a rich source of proteins, carbohydrates, potassium and sodium etc. He also advised the farmers to use approved varieties of potato for cultivation over maximum space.