Naveed Qamar was on an official visit to Tajikistan to attend the fourth session of the Pakistan-Tajikistan Joint Ministerial Commission (JMC), said a statement issued here on Wednesday.

The protocol provides for bilateral cooperation in various fields including agriculture, education, trade, energy, health, sports, tourism, industry, investment, banking, transport, communications, culture and combating drugs.

At the JMC session held at Dushanbe, both the Ministers also reviewed bilateral relations, identified areas of cooperation and issues involved and suggested ways and means to strengthen the existing bilateral cooperation.

The two leaders emphasized on the early completion and implementation of CASA-1000 project and expressed their readiness and commitment towards mutually beneficial cooperation in all fields particularly in the domain of economy, energy, trade and infrastructure.

Addressing the participants of the JMC session, Syed Naveed Qamar informed that despite the recent floods and global financial crisis along with Pakistan's contribution to war on terror, Pakistan had shown that it had a resilient economy as the foreign reserves had crossed US $ 17 billion and was inching towards macroeconomic stability.

He emphasized on the necessity of increased business-to-business interaction and people to people contacts for boosting bilateral economic cooperation and enhancing mutual understanding.

While appreciating the three-time increase in bilateral trade in the last one year, Qamar noted that bilateral trade at US $ 21 million was still below the actual potential of the two countries and underlined the need to accelerate the pace of bilateral trade for the benefit of the people of both the countries.

The minister also called on Tajik President Emomali Rahman who is scheduled to visit Pakistan during the next week and conveyed the best wishes of President and Prime Minister to him.