United Kingdom (UK) will focus on Common Wealth countries after Brexit and in this connection Pakistan must preempt and prepare itself to fill the expected business vacuum in this country, said Dr. Arif Anis of UK World Congress of Overseas Pakistani.
Addressing the business community in Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) here today, he mentioned various steps taken by UK to extend maximum facilitation to the business community of Common Wealth countries. He told that almost 193 communities are living in UK but Pakistan has unique privilege due to its political and social dominance. He said that currently Sadiq Khan is Mayor of London. Similarly at least 15 Pakistani expats are Member Parliament (MP).
He further told that Sajid Javaid yet another Pakistani is also holding an important portfolio of Interior Ministry. They all are Pakistani and we hope that very soon British Premier will also be a Pakistani. He appreciated the honesty, dedication and intellectual acumen of Pakistanis and hoped that being versatile and successful persons, they must expand their businesses throughout the world by establishing their Branch offices in UK. He further told that Pakistan has close relationship with UK while language is also not a problem for us.
Continuing Dr. Arif told that Pakistan is included among 5 major countries of common wealth. The British Prince William had visited Pakistan during the month of October. The objective of his visit was to warm-up Pakistan to fill the vacuum of business after Brexit deal. He told that UK has opened its door for Pakistani businessmen and in this connection many new schemes have been introduced. Under ROB (Representatives of Overseas Business), Pakistani businessmen could open up there branch offices in UK from where they could make exports to Europe and entire world.
Earlier President Rana Sikandar Azam told that FCCI is regularly organizing trade delegations to enhance exports. Recently a delegation had visited Saudi Arabia and this visit proved very successful. He told that objectives of these visits are business promotion and not recreation. He said that Dr. Arif Anis has expertise in this specific field and we would like to get benefit from him in order to make our proposed visit to UK successful. Quoting the visit of Saudi Arabia he told that Shafique Kashif is member of our Chamber and but for the first time we had exploited his expertise to make his visit a total success. He had also arranged our meeting with Makkah and Medina Chambers. "We also had formal productive discussion with leading business personalities of Saudi Arabia", he added.
President hoped that Dr. Arif will make such excellent arrangements in addition to organizing B2B meetings with sector specific persons of UK. Rana Sikandar Azam told that Faisalabad is already making textile export to UK but he intends to diversify its exports with a focus on IT and other segments of economy.
Later a question answer session was held while Bilal Waheed Sheikh offered vote of thanks.