Pakistan is facing some challenges and Australia is ready to cooperate with it in multiple sectors including agriculture, energy, exploration of natural resources, information technology, health, education and value chain to uplift its economic profile, observed HE Margaret Adamson, High Commissioner of Australia, while addressing business community at the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
She said Pakistan was in the driving seat globally in IT sector with young and talented pool of IT professional and this area had great potential for mutual cooperation between the two countries. She said water conservation and optimum utilisation of water was another area of great interest for Pakistan and Australia as both could face water shortage issue. She said their strong cooperation in this area could help them to cope with this challenge more effectively.
She said Pakistan was a strong market of 200 million people with abundant natural resources while Australia possessed advanced technology and expertise in many fields, so both the countries have good potential to complement each other in many areas. She said this region had great opportunities for business and investment and opined that the CPEC was vital to strengthen the regional connectivity and promote regional integration.
Margaret Adamson said Australia could supply LNG to Pakistan to overcome its energy issues. She was of the view that Pakistan’s profile as an investment destination was needed to be further uplifted to attract more Australian investment. However, she assured that Australia would continue to work with Pakistan in agriculture, energy, health, education and other sectors to strengthen its economy.
In his welcome address, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry President AtifIkram Sheikh said Pakistan and Australia enjoyed good political relations which should be transformed into growing trade and economic relations. He said bilateral trade of US$ 485 million during 2014-15between Pakistan and Australia was far less than their real potential and stressed that both the countries should focus on exchange of trade delegations on regular basis to identify new avenues of mutual cooperation.
He said Australia should share its advanced agro-technology, expertise and quality seeds with Pakistan to improve productivity and quality of its agro products. Various proposals for enhanced cooperation in areas of industry, textiles, agriculture, dairy, livestock, trainings and skills development and other areas were also discussed.
