The Managing Director of PIA agreed to the proposal of sales of tickets through the travel agency of El Corte Ingles as well as for development of tourism packages for Pakistan.
This was stated by Tariq Iqbal Puri, Chief Executive of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) at a press briefing at a local hotel after 'successful conclusion' of 7-day visit, from 21 February to 27 February, of 22 members buying delegation of El Corte Ingles Group-one of the largest chain stores of Spain.
TDAP CE said that this visit to Pakistan had been made after the successful marketing efforts of PIA Commercial Section and Consul for Investment of Pakistan in Spain and TDAP. Borja de la Cierva, Director of El Corte and leader of the Spanish delegation, said that his company has an annual turnover of more than $25 billion and annual imports of more than $10 Billion. El Corte Ingles is the most trusted name in Spain and Portuguese retail sector in terms of quality of products and services. It has more than 400 stores under the brand name of El Corte Ingles, Hipercor, Supercor, Opencor, etc.
TDAP CE said this delegation consisted of 20 delegates from El Corte Ingles with Borja de la Cierva, Director/Head of international supply chain as group leader. TDAP fully sponsored the visit of the delegation, besides arranging visits to the Pakistani industrial manufacturers and match making meetings in Lahore, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Karachi. He added that 272 B2B meetings and 59 visits of leading Pakistani manufacturing units were arranged by TDAP.
In addition, they had a very fruitful meeting with MD of PIA. El Corte is also involved in travel business and is interested in commercial relationship with PIA. The Managing Director of PIA agreed to the proposal of sales of tickets through the travel agency of El Corte Ingles as well as for development of tourism packages for Pakistan. A committee was constituted with Deputy Managing Director as head to work out the details. TDAP CE added that during last year, 32,000 passengers travelled from Barcelona to Chicago, and PIA got only 1200 passengers, even though it is the only airline which is operating a direct flight on the sector. By reaching this arrangement with the El Corte Ingles it is expected that there will be a substantial increase in passenger load of PIA.
Keeping in view the volume of annual turnover, imports of El Corte Ingles, and seriousness of Spanish delegates, it is hoped that their visit to Pakistan will go a long way in enhancing trade between Pakistan and Spain. TDAP foresees sizeable orders for Pakistan after their visit. The delegation had also called on the Governors of Punjab and Sindh during their visit to Pakistan.
Cierva expressed complete satisfaction over the visit and thanked TDAP and Government of Pakistan for making excellent arrangements for their visit to Pakistan. He said that El Corte organises promotional events of products of specific countries once in a while. During such events, conspicuous portions of different stores of the company are allocated for display of products of the relevant country. El Corte Ingles Group buys and imports the products on display directly from the country in promotion and sells it at the dedicated sections in its outlets. Previous beneficiaries of such promotions include India, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Vietnam, Indonesia and some South American countries. After this successful visit to Pakistan, El Corte Ingles has agreed to organise a similar event of products of Pakistan. The fair/event is likely to be held towards the end of 2011 or in the beginning of 2012 and the duration will be from two weeks to one month.-PR
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