Spain is one of the main wind and renewable energy producer in Europe with advanced expertise in the construction of ports, roads, highways & airports and it was ready to help Pakistan in energy and infrastructure development, observed Spanish Ambassador Javier Carbajosa while addressing business community at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI).
Carbajosa said that despite challenges, Pakistan’s geographical location and Pak-China economic corridor offered plenty of opportunities to investors while the current government has made investment friendly policies and added that he would try to motivate the Spanish companies to explore Pakistan for investment and joint ventures, especially in renewable energy and other areas of potential cooperation.
He said tourism contributed 20 percent to Spain’s GDP while Pakistan occupied many beautiful tourism destinations and it was another area where both countries could enhance collaboration. He said Pakistan and Spain has good potential to cooperate in agriculture and telecommunication sectors as well.
He said businessmen of both countries have to play key role in promoting bilateral trade, but lack of knowledge and lack of interaction between private sectors of both countries needed to be overcome to improve trade relations. He stressed that both countries should enhance exchange of business delegations to explore new avenues of business partnerships and assured that Embassy of Spain would play facilitative role to achieve these goals.
In his welcome address, acting ICCI President Muhammad Shakeel Munir said that in 2012, Pakistan’s share in Spain’s total imports was only 0.2 percent while Spain’s share in Pakistan’s total imports was 0.1 percent while two countries have greater potential for enhancing trade and stressed that renewed effort were required to be made to improve it.
He said Pakistan and Spain should facilitate and encourage private sectors to develop strong linkages in order to explore and exploit all avenues of cooperation in order to realize shared objectives of promoting sustainable trade and economic relations. He said Pakistan possessed immense reserves and wide varieties of marble stones and Spanish entrepreneurs should assist Pakistan with technology transfer and share of expertise to produce value added marble products. He said ICCI would consider sending its delegation to Spain to find out opportunities of business collaboration.
