By Agha Iqrar Haroon
Islamabad, Pakistan: Belarusian Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov has arrived in Islamabad on 3-day visit, reports Dispatch News Desk news agency.
Andrei Kobyakov will hold meeting with President and Prime minister of Pakistan during his visit. Several agreements, MoUs to be signed between two countries. He has come with a big delegation of Belarusian industrialists, traders, businessmen and diplomats.
Belarus is the one of the biggest heavy industry maker in former Soviet Bloc. Pakistan is interested to transfer heavy industry technology from Belarus to Pakistan in the field of agricultural industrial tools. Pakistan also wishes to open its market for value added products being sold by Belarus including potassium sulfide.
Belarusian Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov will also attend third Pak-Belarus trade Forum during his visit.
Recently, Pakistan and Belarus have come much closer to each other and boosted their bilateral cooperation in various fields. Both countries will also consider soft visa regime, development of tourism and direct flights to and from each other during talks.
In August this year, Sharif visited Belarus and met with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov and other high level Belarusian officials in Minsk.
During Sharif’s stay in Minsk, the two countries also signed a number of agreements and MoUs to strengthen their multifaceted relations particularly in areas of trade, commerce, education and culture.
“Pakistan attaches great importance to its relations with Belarus which have been on an upward trajectory since last year,” Sharif said at a joint press conference along with President Lukashenko in Minsk following the talks.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko also paid an official visit to Pakistan in May, 2015.
The Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi believes that the upcoming visit of the Belarusian Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov to Pakistan will further strengthen the existing economic relations between the two countries as the prime minister of Belarus will lead a high powered delegation to Islamabad. The special assistant expressed the hope that the existing economic relations between the two countries would be further strengthened as a result of the visit, and the Belarusian businessmen would utilize the business friendly policies of Pakistan to invest in diverse areas of its economy.
Belarusian Minister for Industry has already landed in Islamabad and Vitaly Vovk held meetings with officials of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan in Islamabad on Friday. Vitaly Vovk expressed satisfaction at the existing bilateral ties between Pakistan and Belarus and reiterated his resolve to continue to work on various initiatives to expand trade and economic cooperation between the two sides.
During his stay in Islamabad from November 9 to 11, the Belarusian prime Minster will holds talks with President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
“Several important agreements and MoUs are also expected to be signed during this visit which will help strengthen the existing ties between the two countries,” the Foreign Office Spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said earlier in a statement.
