Naveed Ahmad Khan 

ISLAMABAD: Africa is the rising continent with over 1.2 billion consumer market and the Pakistani business community should focus on Niger to penetrate the African market for trade and exports. This was said by Ahmed Ali Sirohey, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Niger during an interaction with the business community at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

The Ambassador said that Niger was a gateway between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa and was keen to promote business relations with Pakistan. He stressed that the Pakistani private sector should explore Niger for business and investment opportunities in order to get better market access to African countries. He assured that he would extend all possible cooperation to the businessmen in exploring Niger for business opportunities.

Speaking at the occasion, Muhammad Shakeel Munir, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) said that Africa was a huge market for Pakistan to enhance its exports, but it still remained untapped due to which our trade with Africa crossed just US$ 4 billion in 2019-20.  He said that the government has made a Look Africa policy that should help in boosting Pakistan’s trade with the African region.

He said that ICCI would consider sending a delegation to African countries including Niger in order to explore new avenues of promoting trade and exports with this high potential market. He hoped that Pakistan Embassy in Niger would fully cooperate with ICCI delegation to make its visit result-oriented.

Muhammad Faheem Khan Vice President ICCI said that African region was a growing market for business and investment and urged that Pakistan should negotiate preferential trade agreements with Niger and other major countries of Africa that would help in boosting Pakistan’s trade with this region and achieve beneficial results for our economy.

Hamayun Kabir, Khalid Mehmood, Tauseef Zaman, Ashfaq Chatha, Khalid Chaudhry, Saeed Bhatti, Malik Mohsin Khalid, Kashif Chaudhry and others also spoke at the occasion and shared useful proposals for strengthening Pakistan’s trade and economic relations with African region.