LAHORE - Syed Nadeem Shah, the honorary Counsel General of Japan’ in Quetta since 2001, said Sunday Japan has been spending and investing for the betterment of the humanity and to develop the developing and poor countries since many years.

“Japan’s goal is to promote peace, humanity and prosperity across the globe. For this reason, it also spends its capital, time and efforts on for the development of Pakistan.”  Nadeem who also founded the ‘Pak-Japan Friendship Society’ around 1980s, highlighting Japan’s global mission and its mission in Pakistan said that Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Japan government organisation plays a vital role in this regard.

“It contributes through means of grant aid, loans and technical support. The areas in which they are helping Pakistan range from promotion of human values and security, development of infrastructure and transport system, strengthening educational institutions, improving healthcare, helping in the economic growth, assisting in disaster management and rehabilitation, enabling our institutions to deal with the issue of urbanisation providing safe water for drinking and domestic use, mending our sewerage system and helping in waste management, guiding and assisting Pakistan to use renewable energy such as solar power and so forth.”

He said JICA was also supporting the immunisation drives such as for the eradication of polio in Pakistan. “The ‘grant’, that Japan provides to Pakistan, is carefully monitored by the Japanese government since they are accountable to their parliament for this.” Recognising and admiring the role of Japanese citizens in this regard, said the Japanese people, as a nation, playing a vital role for this cause through their tax money and personal involvement in Pakistan.

Nadeem Shah, however, regretted that the scale of trade between the two countries was not significantly large as Pakistan imports numerous items from Japan but it hardly exports any goods to Japan in return. “Pakistan’s mangoes, for example, are adored by many people in Japan” he pointed an example of the items that can be exported from Pakistan. “Nevertheless, there’s a dire need to make an effort to balance our trade” added Nadeem, he who was awarded ‘Order of the Rising Sun’ by the Government of Japan in 2016 to acknowledge his services and long standing commitment to promote friendly relationship between Japan and Pakistan,

“Pakistan should consider increasing business relationship with Japan as a priority and thereby reap its benefits to achieve development and prosperity. We have Pakistan Japan Business Forum (PJFB) with its’ headquarter in Karachi. It was founded in 2001 to promote the business and friendly relationship between the two countries. My brother, Syed Feroz Alam Shah, is a part of its ‘board of directors’. This Forum should be used to enhance the business between the two countries while providing the government of Pakistan with suggestions and proposals.”

He said it was unfortunate that much of Pakistani businesses were either not aware about such opportunities or, else, took little interest in it. This needs to be overturned to enhance our trade with Japan, he added.

Expressing dissatisfaction with the trade policies of Pakistan, Nadeem Shah: “Instead of focusing on aid, Pakistan should devise effective trade policies to achieve financial stability.”

He continued mentioning that Pakistan needs to make sure that its foreign investors feel safe and secure in our country. “We also need to make sure that political disturbances be strangling our roads and halting our work. Besides, we also need to ensure a steady and regular power supply for the development work to run in a smooth fashion!”

Speaking about Japan’s contribution Balochistan, where Nadeem Shah has served the most and has taken a leading role in the Japanese assistance projects therein, he said: “Japan has contributed tremendously through welfare related funds towards the people of Balochistan. To provide education to the poor chil dren, Japan has funded nearly 200 schools throughout Balochistan. They also provided high quality teaching equipment to the Bolan Medical College in Quetta few years ago. Recently, they similarly helped Balochistan Univeristy of Information, Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences (BUITMES). Japan has also contributed to the Agriculture Sector in Balochistan which includes providing approximately 350 bulldozers and more than 20 drilling rigs (to cater for the scarcity of surface water in Balochistan that is otherwise a major obstacle for the irrigation system). They have also worked on the roads and infrastructure, transportation and power sectors.”