ISLAMABAD: British Trade Commissioner to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Middle East Simon Penney called on Advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood in Islamabad on Monday.
Matters of mutual interests, bilateral trade, investment, economy and other issues were came under discussion in the meeting, said a statement issued from the ministry.
Talking to the commissioner, Dawood, said,” UK can play important role in promoting trade and investment growth of Pakistan by investing in competitive sectors.”
He said that continuation of preferential market access under GSP Plus in the post-Brexit scenario would ensure predictability and sustainability to the Pakistani exporters in the UK market, read the statement.
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Dawood stated that Pakistan had launched a program titled ‘Regulatory Guillotine’ to ease the business regulations and added that Pakistan had taken various effective steps to improve trade procedures by establishing better trade facilitation regime.
The advisor also invited UK trade commissioner to have a follow up visit in September, 2019 for further deliberations on bilateral trade and investment issues
On the occasion, Mr. Penney underlined the importance of post-Brexit bilateral trade between the two countries and resolved to maintain the same market access to Pakistan as it enjoyed with EU countries since the grant of GSP Plus status in 2014.
In this regard, he has further informed that UK companies were very committed to continue their imports from Pakistan.
The UK trade commissioner urged the advisor to remove all the bottlenecks, being faced by UK investment companies in Pakistan. He apprised Dawood about the UK’s export finance scheme which covered selling of goods to the tune of 1 billion USD in UK market by providing risk insurance facility.
“UK companies intend to work jointly with Pakistani companies to enhance bilateral investment relations by exploring untapped potential in various promising investment sectors”, he added.
