SIALKOT-Tunisian Ambassador in Pakistan Adel Eiarbi offered the Sialkot exporters direct trade links and their easy access to the international trade markets of Tunisia as well as the European, African and Arab countries through Tunisia.
He said that Tunisia will play the leading role of a gateway to EU, African and Arab World for the Sialkot exporters. He said that Tunisia was keen to establish strong trade relations with Pakistan besides increasing its mutual trade volume in favour of Pakistan.
Addressing a meeting of the Sialkot exporters held at Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) after visiting several industrial units at Sialkot, the Tunisian ambassador stressed a need for making efforts to establish strong mutual trade ties besides increasing the bilateral trade between the two countries.
He also pledged to make some strenuous efforts to remove all the hurdles from the smooth way of promotion of the bilateral trade between Pakistan and Tunisia. He also assured the Sialkot exporters of their easy access to international trade markets of Tunisia and European Union (EU), African and Arab international trade markets through Tunisia.
He said that Tunisia would continue its developed economic cooperation with Pakistan besides focusing on mutual trade promotion under direly needed Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) between Pakistan and Tunisia. He added that early exploring of the new business opportunities between Pakistan and Tunisia from both sides was the demand of the day besides establishing the direct trade and Business-to-Business linkages between the businessmen of both Pakistan and Tunisia.
He termed the lack of proper mutual trade information the main obstacle in the way of bilateral trade between Pakistan and Tunisia. He said that there were the bright opportunities of establishing joint ventures in different trade fields. He also pledged that Tunisia would remove all the trade barriers from the way of promoting bilateral trade and bridge all the communication gaps in this regard.
He said that Tunisia was ready to open the new trade vistas with Pakistan by focusing on establishing the strengthened mutual trade ties with Pakistan under the Tunisian General System of Preferences (GSP), which would be helpful to remove all the hurdles from the way of promotion of bilateral trade between Pakistan and Tunisia.
Presenting his welcome address, SCCI President Zahid Latif Malik said that it was encouraging that both the countries were eager to expand bilateral cooperation in diverse fields. He suggested early signing of Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) between Pakistan and Tunisia.
The SCCI President added there was a dire need to take immediate and drastic steps to increase bilateral trade. He revealed that the mutual trade volume between Pakistan and Tunisia was US$ 30 million which was quite disappointing considering the potential.
H esaid that there was a lot of potential to increase mutual trade volume between Pakistan and Tunisia as both the sides have a huge unexplored trade potential. SCCI’s SVP Abdul Waheed narrated that both countries could enjoy fruits of liberal trade by removing trade barriers and improving business to business linkages.
Earlier, the Ambassador visited several leading industrial units in Sialkot. He showed very keen interest in the manufacturing and production processes of the sports goods and surgical instruments.
On this occasion, the Tunisian Ambassador said that the Sialkot exporters have great potential to explore and capture the international trade markets of Tunisia by exporting their diversified traditional and non-traditional world class export products to Tunisia.