Meeting at KCCI offices: Polish envoy says trade with Pakistan has increased to $722m

KARACHI: Ambassador of Republic of Poland to Pakistan Maciej Pisarski said that trade between Pakistan and Poland has increased to US 722 million dollars and it was largely in favor of Pakistan by $ 600 million mainly due to intensification of Pakistani exports of textiles, leather and sports goods to Poland within the GSP Plus scheme.

Polish envoy while speaking at a meeting during his visit to the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry appreciated the KCCI’s suggestions to improve trade and investment ties and advised the business community of Karachi to look forward to Poland for investment as it was a place where foreign investors can set up their business operations and operate throughout the entire Europe.

“It is a challenge for me to deal with Poland’s trade deficit with Pakistan hence; I will be exploring ways and means of how to reduce this deficit by improving Polish exports to this country. As potential is there so we need to do more to improve the existing trade and investment ties which is very important,” he added.

He informed that a Polish oil & gas exploration company, which has been successfully operating in Pakistan since last 25 years, has been able to extract tight gas from the rock formations by applying latest technologies.

“This company is interested in doing more hence, they are applying for additional concessions so that they could expand their operations to extract indigenous Pakistani gas which is sold to the domestic market only and is four times cheaper than the imported LNG.”

He was of the opinion that the agriculture, textile, leather, pharmaceutical and dairy sectors were very important where the business communities of the two countries can collaborate while Poland can also offer interesting technologies in the banking sector, fintech, digital security, drones, smart cities and all other things which were related to the new era of digitalisation.

Referring to the climate change and the recent floods in Pakistan, the envoy said that Poland can offer cutting edge technologies for water management and renewable energy.

“We have great potential but we need to sit together to identify those sectors where opportunities are the greatest,” he added and appreciated the idea of setting up a joint business forum.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022