ISLAMABAD -Ambassador of Denmark, Jesper Moller Sorensen Wednesday said there was a huge potential for enhanced cooperation with Pakistan in the areas of renewable energy, Information Technology, software development, agriculture and pharmaceuticals.
The Danish ambassador to Pakistan, who has been making efforts for enhanced ties in all areas between the two countries since his posting here last year, said he desired to see a 40 per cent increase in exports from Denmark by the year 2016.  Ambassador Sorensen said his country can benefit from the IT and software industry of Pakistan, while Pakistan can also take advantage of the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus status awarded to it by the European Union.
He expressed his pleasure that Pakistan had been granted the GSP+ status and said his government had strongly supported this decision. Pakistan’s current exports to Denmark already constitute around 50 per cent textile or textile related items, he added.  According to the official trade figures the total exports of Denmark to Pakistan were US$ 224 million; including US$ 126 million in services and USD 98 million dollars in goods; including special machinery, pharma, chemicals, and foodstuff.  Pakistan’s total exports to Denmark are US$ 169 million, including US$ 101 million in goods and US$ 68 million in services. 
Ambassador Sorensen who visited the APP head office said the bilateral ties between the two countries have “significantly” improved in the past few years.
JThe Danish Embassy was now much more broadly engaged in areas such as development cooperation, stabilization, public diplomacy, and trade.  He said Pakistan was a nuclear power with a large military, and that the Pakistani economy was big due to the size of its population, yet at the same time Pakistan’s social indicators had unfortunately not seen much progress in the last decades.  The ambassador said it was also the reason that Denmark was playing its role in helping Pakistan improve its educational needs and basic indicators supporting mechanisms such as UNICEF, Multi-Donor Trust Fund, together with its European partners through EU activities.
He believed that there was a strong connection between the efforts to increase commercial ties and its development assistance, as creating more jobs and providing opportunities for every Pakistani will help people stand up on their own feet.  “We desire that Pakistan in the long run does not need any aid and becomes affluent and self sustaining,” he said.  Ambassador Sorensen said Pakistan was an important country in the region and whatever happens here also may have consequences in Denmark. He said that he fully appreciated the hardship that the people of Pakistan have gone through over the last decade.  “We will never forget the terrible losses terrorism has inflicted on this country. We are very aware of this, and we support Pakistan.”
For this reason, the ambassador said, his country has also helped Pakistan with its stabilization programme which includes a counter-IED project and exchange programs. He said last week, a syndicate from Pakistan’s National Defence University visited Denmark for the first time.