ISLAMABAD-Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar on Wednesday said that Pakistan and the UAE are engaged in various areas including energy, refinery, petroleum and trade, however, still a lot of potential is unexplored
Hamad Obaid Ibrahim Salim Al-Zaabi, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, called on the Federal Minister for Finance & Revenue Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Hamad Obaid Ibrahim Salim Al-Zaabi shared the deep rooted brotherly relations between the two countries and discussed avenues of furthering and strengthening economic and financial ties between the UAE and Pakistan. Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar stated that Pakistan and the UAE are engaged in various areas including energy, refinery, petroleum and trade, however, still a lot of potential is unexplored. In this regard, the finance minister highlighted various avenues in which both countries can enhance their existing trade and investment relations.
The ambassador of the United Arab Emirates appreciated development-oriented economic policies of Pakistan initiated by the present government and expressed the interest of the UAE in augmenting and furthering investment in various sectors of the economy of Pakistan. Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar welcomed the investment proposals of the UAE in Pakistan and extended full support and cooperation by the government. In conclusion, the finance minister shared sentiments of gratitude for good will and cooperation of his excellency and hoped to enhance the bilateral relations further in the future.
UAE company keen to
promote financial inclusion
of SMEs in Pakistan
A delegation of UAE-based company InvoiceMate visited Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry to introduce their invoice management system on blockchain for promoting financial inclusion of SMEs in Pakistan.
Muhammad Salman Anjum, Founder & CEO, Saeed Alhebsi, Co-Founder of InvoiceMate and Advisor on Artificial Intelligence to the Ministry of Human Resource & Emiratization of UAE, Rafael Shulz, Founder BlockchainPunk Labs of Germany, Muhammad Zeeshan Abid, Co-Founder & Product Design Lead at InvoiceMate, were in the delegation. Ms. Rashida Bajwa, Assistant Director (ME-I), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan accompanied the delegation.
Speaking at the occasion, Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI), welcomed the UAE delegation and assured them of full support in rolling out the blockchain powered financial inclusion enabler InvoiceMate for SMEs in Pakistan. He lauded the efforts of InvoiceMate for revolutionizing invoice financing by enabling financial inclusion of SMEs and informal businesses. He said that the financial inclusion of SME is very important to accelerate the economic growth in Pakistan. He said that SMEs get only around 6% credit of the total private sector credit in Pakistan, which is less than 1% of GDP and is a major hurdle in their growth and stressed that the government should increase credit to SMEs to at least 20 percent that would boost business activities and put Pakistan on the path of sustainable growth.
Speaking at the occasion, Muhammad Salman Anjum, Founder & CEO, Saeed Alhebsi Co-Founder of InvoiceMate said that they are keen to create sustainable financial inclusion opportunities in the Pakistan market. They gave a detailed briefing to the business community about all the aspects of the world’s first blockchain-powered invoice management and financing solution that enables invoice automation. It comes with function specific features that provide efficient results, while saving money & resources. They said that InvoiceMate uses emerging technologies like blockchain & AI that provides multiple benefits to the businesses including 70-80% reduction in payable workload, 60-70% reduction in payment errors, 40-50% reduction in cost per invoice, 95-100% achievement in data accuracy and 70-75% reduction in reconciliation efforts. Faad Waheed, Senior Vice President ICCI, said that SMEs are the backbone of the economy and said that ICCI would cooperate with Team InvoiceMate in introducing its latest invoice management system in its member companies to increase their efficiency and productivity.
