Czech Republic considers Pakistan a potential market

Islamabad: The Czech Republic considers Pakistan a potential market for business & investment and a delegation of Czech businessmen led by Ministry of Commerce would visit Pakistan in June 2019 to explore possibilities of JVs and business collaboration.

This was said by Michal Bobek, Commercial Counselor of the Embassy of Czech Republic while interacting with business community at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Michal Bobek said that Czech Republic had established textile industry during the age of industrialization and it was now focusing on R&D. He said Czech Republic has the knowledge while Pakistan has the capacity in textile sector and their mutual cooperation in this field would be quite beneficial for both countries.

He said Czech Republic was an industrialized country and Pakistan could import many quality products from it including industrial machinery, energy, electrical & telecom equipment, automobiles and many other products. He said ICCI should provide a list of businessmen who were interested in B2B meetings with the delegation of Cvisiting his country for business purpose.

Speaking at the occasion, Ahmed Hassan Moughal, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that Pakistan and Czech Republic enjoyed bilateral relations since the early 1950s that should be translated into growing trade and economic relations.

He said that bilateral trade between Pakistan and Czech Republic was less than $200 million, which was not reflective of the true potential of both countries. He said the main reason of low bilateral trade was the lack of information about each other’s economy, trade and investment potential, and low level of interaction between the private sectors of both countries.

He stressed that Pakistan and Czech Republic should encourage frequent exchange of trade delegations and organize single country exhibitions on reciprocal basis to explore all untapped areas of mutual cooperation.

Ahmed Hassan Moughal said that many Czech companies including Bata shoes, Tatra trucks, Skoda cars, sugar mills, cement plants, textile machines, power generations achieved good success in Pakistan and urged that more Czech companies should come to Pakistan to explore JVs and investment in CPEC and in other sectors of Pakistan’s economy.

Iftikhar Anwar Sethi Vice President ICCI, Khalid Malik Chairman ICCI Diplomatic Committee, Muhammad Ahmed, Sheikh Abdul Waheed, Abbas Hashmi, Nadeem Mansoor, Ziad Khalid Chaudhry, Muhammad Hussain, Ashraf Farzand and others also spoke at the occasion and gave suggestions for improving bilateral trade and economic relations between Pakistan and Czech Republic.