Opinion

Boosting Islamabad-Manama relations

The continued to drump up trade and investment

Muhammad Zahid Rifat
By Muhammad Zahid Rifat
138

Pakistan enjoys very warm brotherly relations with all Gulf Cooperation Council members, which are embedded in history and religion. The GCC region has remained the most important pillar of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Pakistan has an abiding interest in geo-political, geostrategic and geoeconomic happenings and developments, positive or negative, in the region. Pakistan also enjoys well-established trade, defence and people-to-people ties with all regional countries.

Bahrain is one of the important countries in the GCC region. Pakistan and BahraIn have established a Joint Ministerial Commission at the Foreign Minister’s level to discuss all encompassing trade and economic ties, take agreed decisions and supervise implementation of these decisions. So far, five sessions of the JMC have been held, the last being in July 2021. In all fairness, Pakistan and GCC member countries represent not only continuity in their brotherly relations but also a strategically strengthening of an already time-tested relationship.

The PM has been undertaking visits to friendly, regional countries and even beyond around the globe quite frequently to seek more trade, investment from these countries in different sectors in Pakistan for stabilizing the national economy at the earliest possible. His productive visit to Bahrain as such augurs well, and hopefully prospective investors and businessmen from Bahrain will be visiting Pakistan in due course of time to explore possibilities of investment and joint partnerships here in different sectors

In this context, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif’s recent two-day official visit to Bahrain quite obviously has assumed special significance.On reaching Manama to a warm welcome, the PM’s meeting with King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa was quite meaningful and productive as both sides after mutual discussions reaffirmed their commitment to further elevating the prevailing bilateral cooperation across sectors.

The PM and Bahraini King, during their in-depth bilateral discussions, reviewed the strength of their longstanding partnership and reaffirmed their commitment to further deepen bilateral ties grounded in shared faith and mutual respect. They reviewed the encouraging prevailing momentum in bilateral relations and agreed to broaden cooperation in the political, economic, defence and cultural fields.

The PM on this occasion reiterated Pakistan’s resolve to further enhance ties and expressed appreciation for Bahrain’s support in the establishment of King Hamad University in Islamabad and high;ighted his country’s keen desire to further expand trade and investment and was ready to advance bilateral trade under the GCC free trade agreement. He also thanked Bahrain’s leadership for continued hospitality to more than 150,000 Pakistanis residing in Bahrain and working in different fields.

While highlighting the significance of their longstanding defence cooperation, the two leaders agreed to further strengthen bilateral cooperation in technical training, logistics, manpower and defence production.

Economic cooperation between the two countries figured quite prominently in the talks in Manama as the visiting Pakistani leader met Bahrain’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa and they reaffirmed their resolve to continue making sincere and committed efforts for further strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two brotherly countries. The PM praised Bahrain’s leadership for its role in strengthening bilateral relations and extended facilitation on the country’s election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for two years. Highlighting the prospects for enhancing bilateral trade the PM stated that Pakistan was desirous of raising the current $500 million trade volume to $1 billion within the next three years. While reviewing defence and security cooperation, both the Pakistani and Bahraini leaders agreed to widen mutual cooperation in training, cyber security, defence production and information exchange.

While addressing the Bahraini investors and business leaders, the PM duly courted them with Pakistan’s sweeping economic overhaul blueprint and invited them to visit Pakistan and explore the opportunities available in the food security, IT, construction, mines and minerals, healthcare, renewable energy and tourism sectors.

It is worth mentioning here that the historical brotherly warmth in the bilateral relations between Pakistan and Bahrain have never been questioned at any level, the discussions in Manama between the visiting Pakistani PM and host Bahraini top leadership have quite appreciably and in a welcome way focused on further expanding bilateral trade, investment, defence partnerships and cultural ties, which obviously signalled a more future-oriented approach which hopefully was aligned closely with the sustainable development goals and economic cooperation of the top leadership of both Pakistan and Bahrain.

As mentioned by the PM during his bilateral discussions with the host Bahrain King, a pretty large number of Pakistanis are residing in Bahrain and positively contributing to strengthening Bahrain’s economy, and there is every possibility of exporting more manpower from Pakistan not only to Bahrain but the Gulf region on the whole as well. Pakistan and Bahrain quite expectedly can develop a collaborative framework for training Pakistani manpower in duly specified special fields. Presently, the Pakistani community in Bahrain includes doctors, engineers, bankers, businessmen as well as workers engaged in different fields.

Following its establishment, the Joint Ministerial Commission has so far been met only twice, the last time being in July 2021. For undertaking productive decisions for boosting, promoting and strengthening bilateral relations between Pakistan and Bahrain as agreed by the top leadership of both the countries, it is imperative that the Pak-Bahrain JMC should be activated and hold its sessions regularly, which would be mutually beneficial for both the countries and their people.

The PM has been undertaking visits to friendly, regional countries and even beyond around the globe quite frequently to seek more trade, investment from these countries in different sectors in Pakistan for stabilizing the national economy at the earliest possible. His productive visit to Bahrain as such augurs well, and hopefully prospective investors and businessmen from Bahrain will be visiting Pakistan in due course of time to explore possibilities of investment and joint partnerships here in different sectors.

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Muhammad Zahid Rifat
Muhammad Zahid Rifat
The writer is Lahore-based Freelance Journalist, Columnist and retired Deputy Controller (News) , Radio Pakistan, Islamabad and can be reached at zahidriffat@gmail.com

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