Growth in textile, other sectors: APTMA urged to focus on talks with US businesses

LAHORE: Dilawar Syed, US Special Representative for Commercial & Business Affairs, said Monday that Pakistan has strong potential to grow in textile sectors and other sectors and its exporters could easily benefit from the liberal economic policies followed by US.

He proposed APTMA leadership to focus on continuing engagements and dialogue with their American counterparts to upsurge trade volume and to get maximum benefit of economic partnership between both the countries.

Dilawar Syed said this during his visit to All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), Lahore office along with a delegation on Monday.

Chairman APTMA Abdul Rahim Nasir, Chairman APTMA Northern Zone Hamid Zaman, Khawaja Anis, Kamran Arshad, Asad Shafi, Ahmed Shafi and Secretary General APTMA North, Raza Baqir welcomed the delegation.

The visiting US envoy expressed his pleasure on visiting APTMA and said that economic partnership between Pakistan and US is very crucial for US administration. He added textile is one of the five crucial pillars of American economic policy and offer great potential to Pakistani textile exporters.

He was optimistic that there were huge potential to expand bilateral commercial and economic ties. He expressed the hope that joining of new American ambassador in Pakistan and posting of large number of diplomats in American mission in Pakistan exclusively for economic relations would facilitate bilateral investment and economic growth. He looked forward to playing an active role to achieve that common goal.

Dilawar Syed pointed out that the US was keen to enhance bilateral trade with Pakistan besides tapping the investment opportunities in different sectors like textile, renewable energy and agriculture. He was confident that with the huge investment in textile sector and after availing tremendous trade opportunities Pakistani textile exports would exceed $ 100 Billion by end of the current decade.

He further stressed on durable bilateral trade relations between the two countries, saying that it would be helpful in developing mutual confidence between the two sides. Both the countries have a long history of more than 70 years in terms of bilateral mutual cooperation in multiple fields to overcome many challenges in the past, he added.

Earlier, speaking on the occasion, Chairman APTMA Abdul Rahim Nasir said the US is Pakistan’s largest trade partner with a total bilateral trade of US$ 7.2 billion in 2020-21. According to him, total exports of Pakistan to the US stood at $4.8 billion against total imports of $2.4 billion from the US.

He added that textile exports from Pakistan to US fetched more than $3 billion during the last financial year. The USA is the largest source of foreign direct investment in Pakistan coupled with remittance of US$ 2.7 billion from USA to Pakistan, he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022