Governor Khartoum Abdelrahman Ahmed Elkhedir will visit Pakistan soon to further strengthen bilateral economic relations between the two brotherly countries.
The governor was talking to a six member Lahore Chamber of Commerce (LCCI) delegation, headed by LCCI Senior Vice President Kashif Younis Meher, at a breakfast meeting in Khartoum. Sudan Ambassador in Pakistan Alshafie Ahmed Mohammad was also present at the meeting.
Abdelrahman Ahmed Elkhedir said Sudan government attaches great importance to its relations with brotherly country Pakistan and would continue to explore new avenues for cooperation between the two sides.
He said LCCI has taken a right decision to send a delegation to Sudan, as despite have a huge potential in a number of areas both the sides have very little bilateral trade.
The governor agreed with LCCI Senior Vice President’s proposal regarding early formation of a working group, comprising economic experts from the two sides to identify and remove the hurdles being faced by the business community in Pakistan and Sudan.
Speaking on the occasion, head of the delegation and LCCI Senior Vice President Kashif Younis Meher said LCCI was advocating the idea of Common Muslim Market and Sudan should extend maximum support so that the idea can be materialised in coming years.
“Since, Pakistan and Sudan are member countries of OIC, so it gives us more encouragement to establish close trade and economic relations. Moreover, we take Sudan as a key player to venture into Africa which offers great opportunities of trade. Considering the business environment here in Sudan, particularly in farming industry, fishing, mineral resources, we will surely like to evaluate the potential for Pakistani businessmen who are related to these sectors.”
Kashif Younis Meher said that Pakistan and Sudan need to enhance the two way trade volume as it stands considerably below to the trade potential. The bilateral trade analysis of the last three years calls for greater efforts to be made to initially get over the $100 million mark. “We need to identify the bottlenecks which are not letting us take benefits from each other’s strong areas. I believe, our initiative of taking this businessmen delegation to Sudan will go a long way in improving the current level of bilateral trade.”
Pakistan’s major exports to Sudan include salt, sulphur, earth, stone, plaster, lime and cement, machinery, pharmaceutical products, articles of textile, cereals, articles of iron or steel, manmade staple fibres, paper and paperboard, etc. Whereas, Pakistan’s main imports from Sudan are cotton, raw hides and skins, leather, iron and steel etc.
If some preference is given to Pakistani exporters, they can definitely take the lead in exporting various consumer goods to Sudan which can further be marketed to its bordering countries.
LCCI delegation also had a meeting with Sudanese Commerce Minister Ali Eljelani in the afternoon and discussed a number of trade related proposals. The two sides also reviewed possibilities of joint ventures between the two countries.
