ISLAMABAD: Nepalese Ambassador Tapas Adhikari has said that Pakistan and Nepal have great potential to enhance trade and economic cooperation and stressed that Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) should explore the possibility of starting direct flights with Nepal that would help in promoting two-way trade between the two countries.
He said that trade promotion would help both countries to reduce unemployment and improve the living standards of their people. He added that Pakistan and Nepal have great scope to enhance cooperation in the tourism sector as both countries possessed highest peaks in the world.
Addressing the businessmen during his visit to the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) on Wednesday, the ambassador said that the Pakistani business community should visit Nepal while he would also try to bring a delegation of Nepalese businessmen to Pakistan for promoting business linkages between both countries.
He said that Nepalese people have a great love for Pakistan and they wanted to further promote trade relations with Pakistan. The delegation of the Chaman Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCCI), led by its President Jalal Khan, was also present at the occasion.
Speaking at the occasion, ICCI President Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan said that Pakistan and Nepal should focus on developing strong business linkages between their private sectors in order to explore all untapped areas of bilateral trade and economic relations as the current volume of trade was far less than the actual potential of both countries.
He said that Pakistan could provide many products to Nepalm including machinery and parts, pharmaceuticals, electronic appliances, textiles products, leather goods, furniture products, fruits and vegetables, meat products and many others, therefore, both countries should find ways for direct trade to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.
The ICCI president maintained that Pakistan and Nepal have the potential to cooperate with each other in agriculture and livestock, industry, energy, tourism, IT, banking and finance, health & education, civil aviation and many other fields for which direct connectivity between private sectors was important.
He said that Pakistan and Nepal should encourage frequent exchange of trade delegations to promote mutual collaboration and strengthen trade relations. He said that Pakistan and Nepal had signed a trade cooperation a long time ago which should be fully exploited for two-way trade promotion.
ICCI Senior Vice President Fatma Azim, ICCI Vice President Abdul Rehman Khan, CCCI President Jalal Khan, former ICCI president Zafar Bakhtawari, and others also spoke at the occasion and called for restarting direct flights between Pakistan and Nepal to bride gap and promote trade relations between the two countries.
They said that direct flights took only 2 hours while, currently, the indirect flight was taking around 22 hours between the two countries, which showed the importance of direct flights for the promotion of B2B and people to people relations between Pakistan and Nepal.
