Bureau Report
LAHORE: The Ambassador of Kazakhstan, Yerzhan Kistafin noted a number of problems that were impeding trade between the two nations, including a lack of connectivity, a lack of visa regime for business people and inadequate logistic solutions.
He was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry. LCCI President Kashif Anwar presented the address of welcome, Senior Vice President Zafar Mahmood Chaudhry, former SVP Amjad Ali Jawa, LCCI Executive Committee Members Raja Hassan Akhter, Muhammad Usman Sheikh, Muhammad Waseem Yousaf, Ahmad Elahi and Fareeha Younis also spoke on the occasion.
The ambassador said that Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister led a delegation to Pakistan where they signed MoUs with several banks. He continued, “We are striving to create a system for exchanging money, adding that we are beginning to offer flights from Lahore and Karachi to Almaty this year.”
He said that we had discovered a technique to simplify the visa procedure. If a member sends a LCCI letter with their passport and requests to travel to Kazakhstan, we can issue them a visa in no more than five days. He said that the Kazakhstan Honorary Consul General in Lahore was also qualified to ease the visa process.
He added that in order to improve regional connectivity, we have conducted a number of sessions with the National Logistic Cell and now the NLC will be delivering goods between the two countries. He said that TCS has also established the service of delivering goods with insurance.
The Ambassador said that we are working hard to assist business people in order to develop B2B relations which the Ambassador described as brothers-to-brothers relations.
He said that we are also organizing different sessions to promote business between two countries. The President Lahore Chamber is invited to participate in those sessions which will likely be organized after Ramazan.
He invited the President Lahore Chamber to lead a delegation to Kazakhstan and see with his own eyes what great potential Kazakhstan offered. Upon which LCCI President Kashif Anwar accepted his offer and said we will surely plan a delegation to visit Kazakhstan.
He said that Pakistan and Kazakhstan are both important member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Economic Cooperation Organization and Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The LCCI President said that according to the statistics by the State Bank, Pakistan has been maintaining a favourable trade balance with Kazakhstan as our exports stood at $80 million in 2020-21 whereas the imports from Kazakhstan were just $2.5 million. That made the total volume of trade at around $82.5 million in 2020-21.
Kashif Anwar said that however in 2021-22, we have seen some improvements both in imports and exports between two countries. Pakistan’s exports reached the level of 108 million dollars while imports also surged to $58 million.
That has resulted in taking the value of bilateral trade to $166 million which is almost double as compared to previous fiscal year. We need to maintain this trend to further exploit the untapped potential of bilateral trade.
He added that the main items of Pakistan’s exports to Kazakhstan include rice, oil seeds and fresh fruits etc. whereas the imports from Kazakhstan comprise mostly of chemicals.
The LCCI President said that Pakistan has huge potential of exporting various items to Kazakhstan. The total global imports of Kazakhstan are in excess of $41 billion. The pharmaceutical imports of Kazakhstan are around $1.7 billion.
The furniture imports of Kazakhstan are $705 million while the footwear imports are $550 million. Talking about textiles, Kazakhstan imports of articles of apparel are in excess of $478 million. Among other products, the edible fruit imports are nearly $465 million.
Pakistan can certainly enhance its exports to Kazakhstan in these sectors. There is also a considerable potential of joint ventures in the areas of tourism and energy. Kazakhstan can also benefit from the expertise of Pakistan in the IT sector.
He said that in order to enhance the volume of trade, more tradable items should be identified while keeping in view the market demands in two economies. Both countries can benefit from strengthening of cooperation through regional connectivity to major cities of Kazakhstan like Almaty, Astana and Shymkent with Lahore and Karachi which are the commercial hubs of our country. Joint ventures in the fields of oil & gas, petro-chemical industries may be a “strategic step” in the right direction.
“We believe that exchange of trade queries through your Embassy can play a helping role in increasing trade activities between two countries”, he added.
He expressed satisfaction on the recent developments. Kazakhstan and Pakistan signed nine documents during the last meeting of the Pakistan-Kazakhstan intergovernmental commission that include six memoranda on the supply of goods to Kazakhstan in March-June 2023. These arrangements would hopefully further strengthen the mutual trade ties between two countries.