Being a rich country in mineral resources, South Africa has the expertise and modern technology to extract coal and it can help Pakistan in using its huge coal reserves for overcoming the ongoing energy crisis.
These remarks were made by HE Kumalo Mpendulo, High Commissioner of South Africa, while addressing the business community at the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry. He said South Africa and Pakistan shared a history dating back many years when Pakistan was supporting the liberation struggle against the evil system of apartheid and thanked the Pakistani people for their support, which led to freedom for all South Africans in 1994. Kumalo said Pakistan and South Africa had tremendous scope to improve trade and economic relations as the bilateral trade of US$ 510 million is quite insufficient. He said South Africa was rich in mineral and other natural resources and wished to encourage Pakistani investors to set up manufacturing plants in South Africa. We offer many attractive incentives to investors and more importantly South Africa is regarded as a gateway into Africa. He said South Africa also offers excellent transport facilities including ports and international airports for the exports of goods. African continent is the second fastest growing region after Asia and Pakistani businessmen could achieve lucrative results by improving trade cooperation with South Africa. He said economic diplomacy had become the buzz word in modern diplomacy and this is an area that he wishes to concentrate on during his term in Pakistan. He said Chambers of Commerce & Industry in Pakistan had a vital role for improving trade and invited the ICCI delegation to visit South Africa to explore new avenues of mutual cooperation. In his welcome remarks, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Zafar Bakhtawari said that good friendly relations between South Africa and Pakistan should be translated into thriving trade and economic relations as bilateral trade was confined to few items and needed to be diversified to take it beyond US$ 1 billion by 2015. He said Pakistan was also endowed with lot of natural resources and this was an area where both countries should strengthen cooperation for mutual benefit. He said close cooperation between the two countries would not only be beneficial for two nations, it would benefit the two regions as well.
He said coal was an attractive area for cooperation and South Africa should share its expertise and technology with Pakistan for exploiting its coal reserves to produce cheap energy. He said Pakistan also offered attractive investment opportunities, especially in energy and infrastructure development and South African investors should make more investment in Pakistan to earn good profits. He assured that the ICCI would work with the South African High Commission to build bridges and develop strong linkages with their South African counterparts. He said that in 1990 when Nelson Mandela, he made big celebration in Pakistan when South African embassy was not establish in Pakistan.
