ISLAMABAD  - Ahmed Ameen Rabaie, Ambassador of Palestine, has said that Pakistan and Palestine should focus on further improving bilateral trade to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes and create new opportunities of progress and prosperity for their people.
He said this in a meeting with Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, president of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, during his visit to ICCI. Fatima Azim, ICCI senior vice president, Abdul Rehman Khan, vice president ICCI, and Ms. Aya Arafat, Advisor to Palestine Ambassador, were also present in the meeting.
The ambassador said that Pakistan and Palestine should promote business linkages between their private sectors to explore all untapped areas of mutual cooperation. He said that both countries should expand existing political cooperation to other areas including economy, agriculture, banking, health, education, social and cultural sectors.
He thanked the government and people of Pakistan for showing strong support to Palestine during Gaza crisis, which was a source of encouragement for Palestinian people. He also thanked ICCI for donating a significant amount for the Palestinian people affected by the recent aggression of Israel.
Speaking at the occasion, Yasir Ilyas said that Pakistani nation has special sentiments for Palestine and we want to see Palestine as a strong economy of the region. He said that ICCI was already in touch with Palestinian Business Association (PBA) to encourage and promote direct contacts between the entrepreneurs of Pakistan and Palestine so as to develop strong commercial and industrial cooperation between the two brotherly countries. He said that ICCI and PBA intended to work jointly for promoting the exchange of trade delegations that would help in exploring new avenues of enhancing trade, JVs and investment between the two countries.
He said that both trade bodies were interested in assisting each other for participation of private sectors in each other’s trade fairs and exhibitions.
He said that ICCI and PBA would also try to hold roundtable conferences and seminars for business communities of both countries and encourage setting up of business partnerships in areas of interest.
Both sides also discussed a wide range of topics to strengthen the trade and economic cooperation between Pakistan and Palestine.
Fatma Azim, senior vice president, and Abdul Rehman Khan, vice president, also stressed the need of further enhancing bilateral trade and economic relations between Pakistan and Palestine as they have good potential to cooperate with each other in many areas.