Islamabad : H.E. Tapas Adhikari, Ambassador of Nepal said that Pakistan and Nepal have great potential to enhance trade and economic cooperation and stressed that 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 living standards of their people. He said that Pakistan and Nepal have great scope to enhance cooperation in tourism sector as both countries possessed highest peaks in the world. He said that 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 great love for Pakistan and they wanted to further promote trade relations with Pakistan. He was addressing the business community during his visit to Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The delegation of the Chaman Chamber of Commerce & Industry led by President Jalal Khan was also present at the occasion.
Speaking at the occasion, Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) 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 Nepal including machinery & parts, pharmaceuticals, electronic appliances, textiles products, leather goods, furniture products, fruits & vegetables, meat products and many others, therefore, both countries should find ways for direct trade to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. He said that Pakistan and Nepal have the potential to cooperate with each other in agriculture & livestock, industry, energy, tourism, IT, banking & 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 long time ago which should be fully exploited for two-way trade promotion.
Fatma Azim Senior Vice President, Abdul Rehman Khan Vice President ICCI, Jalal Khan President Chaman Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Zafar Bakhtawari former President ICCI 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 indirect flight was taking around 22 hours between the two countries, which showed the importance of direct flights for promotion of B2B and people to people relations between Pakistan and Nepal.