FAISALABAD - UK officials have said that trade between their county and Pakistan has recorded upward trend during the current year and added that the British High Commission will impart technical skills to Pakistani entrepreneurs and businessmen to further enhance the bilateral trade volume. Mr Ben Stride, the Secretary Political Affairs, and Ms Rubina Afzal, the In-charge of Human Rights & Political Affairs and members of the British High Commission team, met with the FDT representatives. –Reporter

They expressed satisfaction over the services rendered by the Faisalabad Development Trust in the fields of health, education, environment & social sector and said that the positive and sustainable results of the projects executed by the trust were very much encouraging. They stressed that the FDT should continue such projects in the future to ameliorate a lot of the people and eliminate poverty. Mr Ben Stride said that a number of joint ventures had already been completed while more such projects could be started to boost the bilateral trade.
He asked the trust authorities to forward their proposals for cooperation with the British High Commission in the social sector. Trustee Syed Omer Nazar Shah said that the public sector was facing an acute shortage of funds to accomplish its social welfare projects .He said that the FDT had executed a number of welfare projects which were yielding positive results. He added that the United Kingdom was also extending generous aid for the development of social sector.
He said that the trust was making efforts to further expand its services in the rural areas and hoped that Britain would cooperate with the FDT to undertake new welfare projects.
Later, trustee Muhammad Waseem Mukhtar said that the government was making efforts to promote regional trade to weed out poverty, hunger and disease from this Subcontinent. He said that the FDT had constructed 200 houses for the flood-hit families of Jhang besides constructing 60 houses in Shahbaz Nagar at Sargodha Road for the expelled residents of slum areas.