Federal Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir Khan, terming the brutalities of occupying forces in Indian held Kashmir as an issue of human suffering, has said that the Europe must see the Kashmir situation purely as an issue of human suffering and try to do whatever it can to protect those people.
In an interview, carried on Tuesday in News Europe (English Media Belgium), he said that Kashmiries were suffering there; they were blinded and killed besides a planned change of demography thereby Indian authorities converting Muslim majority into minority by settling Hindus in the occupied valley.
Responding to a question about his handing over a report on human rights violations in a neighbouring country, India, which is not usually what trade ministers do, Dastgir said he had not given the report to trade commissioner Malmstrom, but handed over to new President of the EU Parliament Tajani, who has to deal with these issues. “The reason I gave the dossier is to remove the label of ‘India-Pakistan’ from the Kashmir and see it as an issue of human sufferings’.
The local media pointed out that as soon as Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the USA from the Trans-Pacific free trade agreement known as TPP, Pakistani Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan rushed to Brussels in order to assess his country’s trade relations with the European Union.
This comes at a time when uncertainty also reigns over other treaty being negotiated by the US with the EU. Pakistan now expects being able to take advantage of these uncertainties and to expand markets, the interviewer-the contributor Editor Dan Alexe said.
To a query, Khurrram Dastgir Khan said that USA has traditionally been Pakistan’s single largest export market. There will be no extraordinary changes now. ‘At the moment, we are analyzing the situation we would like to be engaged in. Particularly, Pakistan is exporting many goods that are no longer produced in the US, particularly textiles. Still, since 2014 the EU became a major partner and gave us the GSP+ status. We wanted the Americans to give us the same status, but apparently both Bush and Obama’s administrations thought that Congress and the Senate would not agree to such concessions.’
However, he maintained that the kind of ‘protectionism’ Trump is promoting, was worrisome for Pakistan.’ If different countries start to go down that way, parts of the global economic regime will be upset,” he said. That’s why we are now in very close cooperation with the EU and with the World Trade Organization, he added.
When his attention was drawn towards the electricity shortage which is pre-requisite ingredient for industrial output vis-a-viz exports, the minister said that Chinese investment is coming to us in different areas, including in solar and green energy. But it is not just the Chinese who invest in our country. Pakistan is also financing from its own resources three major natural gas fields. The Chinese have been major investors, and we expect by the middle of next year to bring in some additional ten thousand megawatts into the system, which will be more than sufficient to cover our shortages, he added.
