Czech parliamentary delegation visits LCCI

A high powered Czech parliamentary delegation led by Daniel Pawlas Chairman, Czech-Pakistan Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group, along with top businessmen visited the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday and had multi-sectoral discussion with their counterparts. LCCI President Almas Hyder chaired the meeting while Vice President Faheem ur Rehman Saigal, the Honorary Consul General of Czech Republic in Pakistan, Kamal Monnoo and LCCI executive Committee members were also present on the occasion.
Chairman Czech-Pakistan Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group, Daniel Pawlas expressed desire to enhance cooperation in trade as well as diverse sectors of economy such as manufacturing, construction activities, energy and many others. We here to invest in Pakistan and to enhance bilateral trade with mutual cooperation, he said. He said that Czech Businessmen want to have joint ventures with their Pakistani counterparts.
LCCI President Almas Hyder said that Czech-Pakistan Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group in National Assembly of Pakistan should continue to take such initiatives to regularly exchange high-profile delegations between two countries. He hoped that the delegation must have had fruitful meetings during their stay in Islamabad specially meeting with Asad Qaiser, Speaker, National Assembly of Pakistan who rightly invited Czech investors to take benefit from economic opportunities in Pakistan.
He said that these interactions allow exploring more about each other and originating new opportunities to expand the scope of cooperation. He said that Lahore Chamber is equally keen to promote trade and investment relations between Pakistan and Czech Republic. Almas Hyder said that considering the total size of Czech Republic's foreign trade which stayed as high as US $386 billion in 2018, the share of Pakistan, both in imports and exports remained negligible. He, however, said that from the last three years, the bilateral trade is following an increasing trend. From 2016 to 2018, the volume of two way trade increased from US $74 million to $89 million and added that we need to keep up this trend with special focus on increasing the volume of bilateral trade. It is needless to mention that your support can play vital role in this connection.
He said that regular exchange of business delegations and trade related information through commercial sections of our respective embassies can prove effective in increasing the level of bilateral trade. He further added that frequent interaction among the major Chambers of Commerce & Industry of the two countries can be instrumental in creating linkages among the representatives of private sectors.