Canada urge to tie trade knot with Pakistan

Karachi: Canada showed eagerness to enhance trade ties with Pakistan, according to the Political and Trade Counselor of Canadian High Commission, Denis Chouinard.

He said that the Canadian High Commission and the KCCI together helped in information sharing and other trade related efforts to make strong relations between the two countries.
He further added that Canada is willing to improve trade ties with Pakistan due to which foreign investments are in progress.

Vice President KCCI, Muhammad Idrees, Trade Commissioner of Canadian Commercial Office, Consulate of Canada, Ather M. Khan, former president KCCI, Majyd Aziz, and other Managing Committee members including Agha Shahab, Zafar Saeed Baghpatee, Durr-e-Shahwar Nisar, Shahid Jahangir and others were also present on the occasion.

Denis suggested that Pakistani and Canadian investors could invest and undertake joint ventures in different sectors particularly mining, medical, engineering, information technology and education sectors.
He further mentioned that in the past few years the trade was down in between both the countries but now the situation is improving and the Canadian government is interested to improvise the circumstances by anyhow.

He said that around two million people from this region were living in Canada, of which one million are from India and 300,000 from Pakistan whereas the rest of 700,000 are from neighboring countries including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh etc.
Canadians of Pakistani origin are contributing to the economy and enriching the multicultural fabric of Canada.

He informed that three visa application centers have been established in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore to facilitate the visa issuance process and provide an ease to Pakistanis who wants to visit Canada.
Muffasar Malik stressed on the necessitate to exchange more trade delegations, individual visits of businessmen and officials, holding single-country exhibitions in each other’s country coupled with joint ventures and better travelling facilities, which would lead to a rapid expansion in bilateral trade and investments.

He informed that trade volume between the two countries was recorded at $ 379 million in 2012-13 whereas Pakistan’s exports to Canada were $ 228 million against $ 225.80 million in 2011-12 and imports from Canada totaled $ 151 million in 2012-13 against $ 365.10 million in 2011-12.