KARACHI: South African High Commissioner in Pakistan, Mthuthuzeli Madikiza has extended his full support in establishing Pak–South Africa Joint Business Council between the national chambers of the two countries to unleash the true potential of bilateral trade, investments, joint ventures, industrial collaborations, export of workforce and transfer of technology.

Discussing issues with FPCCI, Mthuthuzeli Madikiza emphasized that South Africa and Pakistan need to look into the bottlenecks in the direct bilateral trade as there are some South African consumer products available in the Pakistani malls; but, they are being branded, packaged and exported through third countries.

Prices of South African consumer products can be considerably brought down and their demand increased as the result; if they are directly imported from the source country, he added.

Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President FPCCI, has apprised that FPCCI, as the apex trade and industry body of Pakistan, will be pushing ahead with and facilitating Look Africa initiatives for the swift exploration of new export markets for the country; which is possible through tapping African and Central Asian states.

Discussing numbers, FPCCI Chief expressed his dismay that with a country, which imports a $100 billion worth of products and exports even more than that, our bilateral trade stands at a meagre $890 million as per trade statistics of 2022 and, upon deciphering further, we have a bilateral trade deficit of $488 million.

This is particularly appalling for the fact that there is so much in our exportable pool that can be exported to South Africa on a mass-scale, i.e. value-added textiles; leather, surgical & sports goods; rice & other edibles and IT & ITeS services.

Irfan Iqbal Sheikh highlighted the very fact that Pakistan has a very strong diaspora in South Africa comprising of top professionals and businessmen; and, they can become an excellent bridge in forging B2B ties between the two countries.

He also stressed upon the need to start barter trade on a wide-scale as both the countries can enhance their bilateral trade to $5–10 billion in a short span of 2–3 years.

Shaukat Omerson, VP FPCCI, highlighted that Pakistani restaurants are doing great business in South Africa as Pakistani cuisine is much liked by the large Pakistani and Indian diasporas in South Africa.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023