Kyiv, Ukraine, The Ambassador of Pakistan in Ukraine Major General (retd) Zahid Mubashir Sheikh has said that trade between Ukraine and Pakistan is less than expectations and can be increased manifold.
Addressing at a lecture of a senior journalist from Pakistan Agha Iqrar Haroon arranged by National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NSJU) here Press Centre, Ambassador Sheikh said that Ukrainian products like sun flower oil can have a market of over 220 million population of Pakistan but trade between the two countries is still less than $200 million.
Important points of his speech are hereunder:
My dream is to rejuvenate the relations of Pakistan and Ukraine we must have lot of business we can complement each other, we have lot of things that we can export to your country and you have lot of things that we need in our country.
I and His Excellency Mr Volodymyr Lakomov, the Ambassador of Ukraine in Pakistan both are trying to enhance trade between Ukraine and Pakistan.
And I find lot of people who want to have business with Pakistan from here and I am approached by a lot of people from Pakistan who want to have business in Ukraine but unfortunately I would hold the two states responsible for not providing facilities to do business with each other.
The mission that I have given myself is that by the time I leave this country we must have more business between Ukraine and Pakistan. You will be surprised to know that today the volume of business is so low it is just about 50 million dollars that we export to Ukraine and it is about 100 million dollars that you export to Pakistan.
Whereas there is a lot of potential I think we can have billions of dollars import and export from both the countries from your country we are having lot of housing projects we need lot of steel from you your country we need a lot of wood from your country. You produce so much of sunflower oil about 50% of the whole world and we are one of the biggest buyers of this oil but somehow the oil doesn’t come from Ukraine to Pakistan
We have a huge market of 220 million people, so you can well imagine how much they must be buying and selling so sky is the limit if you can find a market in Pakistan I think your business will flourish
Similarly, in Pakistan we produce one of the best cottons in the world we have a bit textile industry we export to lot of countries like United States, UK, Germany, Italy but unfortunately export to Ukraine is very little
Some of my Ukrainian friends tell me that the clothes that they have bought from Pakistan they haven’t seen such clothes anywhere else.
So it is just a matter of exploiting this opportunity I think somebody from your country must import textile from Pakistan.
You must have heard the basmati rice, it is a very fragrant rice that we produce in Pakistan, it has a beautiful unique fragrance so this is only produced in Pakistan and I see a bit of import here but not as much as it should be.
And you are quite familiar with football, the last football world cup that was played the ball was from Pakistan the team was not there but the ball was from Pakistan
We almost meet the 70% needs of football of the entire world
So I find no reason that way Ukraine should not import football from Pakistan.
We also make excellent medical instruments and beauty instruments and they can be imported very cheaply here and sold on expensive price and somebody can make a lot of money from this business.
