India-Pakistan trade meet in Delhi next week

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SME Times News Bureau | 08 Oct, 2013
The second meeting of the India-Pakistan business council will be held in Delhi next week, Pakistan High Commissioner to India Salman Bashir said here Monday.

Interacting with a group of business leaders at a meet organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Bashir said the council had already set up four task forces to identify, recommend and initiate the process of partnership in different sectors.

The council, set up by the commerce ministries of the two nations and comprising 15 business leaders from both sides, held its first meeting in Islamabad in June.

The high commissioner said Pakistan was keen to take pragmatic steps to promote trade and economic cooperation with India.

"We are very keen to move and take pragmatic steps to build mutually beneficial cooperation which should be full spectrum in realms of trade, economic cooperation and also in terms of add-ons we can mutually do in terms of technology," he said.

"We have lot of hope and expectation that this process of businesses chairing the relationship especially in economy and trade would make very substantive difference not only to businesses but to the whole context of relations between the two countries," he added.

Bashir said they had in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif a businessman "who thinks like a businessman and sees great merit in taking strong solid steps for business with India".

The high commissioner urged the business leaders to factor in Pakistan in their respective business plans. He said the two neighbours had several positives like contiguity and complementariness in many sectors.

"We are very keen to make all this happen because finally we look forward to development of our people prosperity and happiness and it can be best achieved by working together in the same direction, complimenting our strengths and building requisite strategies."

The Pakistani envoy said he was impressed and deeply touched by the beauty of Hyderabad and its people but by its great developmental accomplishments.

"This is first time I am visiting this part of India. It is indeed reliving in the sense that you don't get full picture of this great, beautiful and diverse country unless you visit city like Hyderabad," said the high commissioner, who concluded his two-day visit to the city Monday.

"We are enamoured and more convinced of the potential for cooperation having visited the city of Hyderabad. I am sure there is ample potential in other parts of India," he added.