LAHORE-Ambassador of Turkiye Dr Mehmet Pacaci has said that both the countries would have to increase relations in every sphere as we have a target to increase the bilateral trade to 5 billion USD which was set by the respective leaders of both the countries.
He was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry. LCCI President Kashif Anwar, Senior Vice President Zafar Mahmood Chaudhry, Turkish Consul General Emir Ozbey and LCCI Executive Committee members also spoke on the occasion. The ambassador said that the relations between Turkiye and Pakistan are unique. Our relations go back to centuries and are more than trade or economy but heart to heart relations. People of both the countries love each other and find many things in common. He said that our commercial relations unfortunately are low as the President of the Lahore Chamber pointed out and summarized the situation of economic relations. The ambassador said that in this regard connectivity between Pakistan and Turkiye plays a pivotal role. He said we have alternatives for connectivity. For example roads, railways, sea and air and those connectivity mediums have their positive sights and negative sights also. But all these depend on our abilities and capacities to resolve the issues of connectivity. He said that we have connectivity through Afghanitstan and Iran and we are well aware of situation in both the countries. Then we have Central Asia and CAUCASSES and all the way to the west. Turkiye is a middle corridor in the connectivity from west to east and from east to west. There is another way for connectivity which is airway. We carry passengers but not goods due to the expensiveness of this medium. The ambassador said that we have to introduce our businessmen to each other to know better each other’s abilities. In this regards the main obstacle is to get to know the sectors in which we can cooperate and to identify those sectors, we have to work harder. LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that Turkiye and Pakistan are key members of Organization of Islamic Cooperation and are bonded together by old historical links and enjoy cordial relations based on commonality of religion.
The relations between two countries are growing in different domains including economic, political, defence, culture and education.
He said it is very encouraging that both the countries achieved a significant milestone in bilateral relations by signing a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) last year. He hoped that PTA would open up new opportunities to expand mutual trade ties across various sectors. The LCCI president said that according to the State Bank of Pakistan’s data, Pakistan’s exports to Turkiye were around 268 million dollars in 2020-21 which increased to 355 million dollars in 2021-22. Similarly, Pakistan’s imports from Turkiye were 867 million dollars in 2020-21 that increased to over 944 million dollars in 2021-22.
He said that Pakistan’s exports to Turkiye are heavily dominated by textiles whereas our imports mainly comprise machinery, iron & steel, and plastic items, among others. He said that we need to make efforts to bridge Pakistan’s trade deficit and to enhance the trade volume to at least 5 billion dollars utilizing the market access on nearly 261 tariff lines provided by Turkiye in the existing Preferential Trade Agreement.
Kashif Anwar said that under the PTA, Pakistan has gained market access in traditional sectors such as leather, rice, dates, mangoes, cutlery, sports goods and non-traditional sectors including seafood, processed agricultural products, rubber tubes and tyres, plastics, and engineering goods etc. We are hopeful that Pakistan can utilize this market access and enhance its exports to Turkiye considerably in these sectors.
He said that there are multiple Pakistani sectors where both countries can enhance economic cooperation, especially the pharmaceutical sector of Pakistan, which is ideal for joint ventures between the two sides. The other key sector with immense scope of joint ventures is tourism.
He hoped that once the PTA creates goodwill and economic gains, both sides can move towards a more comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA). That would certainly help Pakistan in boosting exports to Turkiye to transform trade deficit into trade surplus.
He said that the quickest way to boost the economic relationship between the two sides is to encourage direct business-to-business contact through exchange of delegations and participation in single country exhibitions.
He said that we can also arrange meetings between the businessmen of the both countries without going physically but through technology and different applications and in this regard our embassies and commercial counselors in both the countries could help us. He said that the target of achieving 5 billion USD trade is possible through mutual cooperation. He also suggested alternative dispute mechanism between both the countries.