D-8 Secretary General, Prof. Dr. Widi A. Pratikto visited Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry on the invitation of Mr.Zafar Bakhtawari, President ICCI to address the business community of Federal Capital as he was on visit to Pakistan for attending D8 summit in Islamabad.
Dr. Widi said that the vision of the D-8 focuses on promoting trade and economic relations with the developing countries as well as making harmony with the developed world. He stressed the importance of the need to expand the scope and range of the cooperative activities in very concrete terms.
D-8 Secretary General also gave a brief overview of the organizational development and said that during the 8th secession, the Ministers of foreign affairs agreed to streamline and rationalize the activities of the organization to five priority areas which include trade, agriculture and food security, industrial cooperation and small and medium scale enterprises, transportation, energy and minerals.
He stressed the role of the activities, including more involvement of D-8 private sectors of civil aviation industry as well as the significance of the Government’s roles in facilitating and stimulating civil aviation business.
Speaking on the occasion, Zafar Bakhtawari said that the trade among member states was stood around $129 billion that is only 6 percent of the world trade which needs to be increased by promoting business-to-business linkages among the member countries. He urged the D8 countries to achieve the $500 billion trade target which is set by Prime Minister of Pakistan, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf through bringing closer the business community of the member countries which would help in deepening our trade and open new vistas for joint ventures.
Bakhtawari said that D8 countries have large Muslim population which over 1 billion, have huge cheap labor force, potential human resource, vast internal market, scope for rapid technology transfer and relatively common social value systems. Therefore, we need now is to strengthen our mutual cooperation, communication and initiative through exchange of expertise, knowledge and transfer of renewable technology.
He welcomed the ratification of Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) by six members and the efforts towards its implementation. He further asked Egypt and Bangladesh, who have not yet ratified the three agreements to do it as soon as possible which would lead the D8 community towards Free Trade agreements as well as greater economic integration.
President ICCI also emphasized on creating direct air-link among all the member countries of D8 organization that would ultimately enhance the level of economic and commercial cooperation among these Muslim countries.
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