Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi had an informal interaction with representatives of the Pakistani expatriate community during a community iftaar dinner hosted by Ambassador Faisal Niaz Tirmizi at Papa Roti on 22 May 2019. Apart from members of the Pakistani community, the dinner was attended by considerable number of local officials and businessmen. Speaking on the occasion, Foreign Minister Qureshi expressed his happiness to meet Pakistani students and businessmen. He spoke on the role of the Pakistani community in promoting the interests of the country abroad. He said that the Pakistani diaspora has an important role as they could promote positive image of Pakistan in the country of their residence in an effective manner. He also highlighted his gratitude that the Pakistani community was contributing significantly to further deepen people-to-people, business-to-business and education-to-education and now cultural contacts between the two countries. While highlighting the problem of logistics being faced by the Pakistani business community in sending their products both through Afghanistan and China due to the non-tariff barriers, he promised to raise this issue with the Chinese authorities at a higher level to ensure that benefits of CPEC are also enjoyed by Pakistan. He also promised to raise the issue of declaring Sust/Khunjrab border as part of TIR Convention to facilitate unhindered transit of Pakistani products to Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia and beyond. He said, the new political set up in Pakistan under the PTI Government was people-centric and its socio-economic agenda aimed at bringing job opportunities and economic benefits to the people. The Government was committed to enhance productivity in the country to give a new impetus to economic-development. The Foreign Minister added that the Government was trying its best to ensure all possible facilitation for overseas Pakistanis. He said that necessary instruction have been issued to all Pakistani Missions abroad to facilitate and assist the community in addressing their genuine concerns in an effective manner. Bishkek 22 May 2019