Prime Minister addressed large gathering of Thai and Pakistani Businessmen

(2013-11-19)

The Prime Minister, Mr. Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, addressed a large gathering of Thai and Pakistani business community on 18 November at Bangkok.

While inviting the Thai businessmen to invest in Pakistan, the Prime Minister said that Pakistan and Thailand enjoyed strategic geographical locations and were endowed with rich human and material resources. Both countries were also significant economies in their respective regions. The Prime Minister stressed that possibilities of mutually and beneficial cooperation were immense.

The Prime Minister said that his government’s top priority was to create and enable the framework for economic development. In this context, the foremost emphasis was to upgrade Pakistan’s energy and physical infrastructure. The Prime Minister told the Thai businessmen that Pakistan had signed Free Trade Agreement with a number of countries and wanted to finalize FTA negotiations with Thailand to enhance trade between the two countries. He said that the establishment of Joint Trade Committee and Joint Business Council between Pakistan and Thailand was a positive step which would open new avenues of cooperation.

The Prime Minister emphasized that Pakistan had devised investment friendly policies in order to reduce the cost and enhance ease of doing business. Establishment of an economic corridor between China and Pakistan, creation of various export processing zone, industrial cluster and special economic zones offered enormous opportunities for international and Pakistani investors to invest in Pakistan.

The business forum was also addressed by the President of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Zubair Malik, and the Thai Deputy Minister for Commerce, Chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Isara Vongkusolkit, and Permanent Secretary General of the Thai Ministry of Commerce besides other Thai businessmen. The Thai businessmen with large investment in Pakistan emphasized that Pakistan was a land of opportunities with best investment conditions for foreign investors. They said that the cheap skilled labour, investor friendly environment and the reforms introduced by the Government to facilitate investments had made Pakistan an attractive destination for investment.

Islamabad
19 November 2013

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