President Dr Arif Alvi has called for fully utilizing the trade potential between Pakistan and France.
He was talking to Pakistan’s Ambassador-designate to France Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, who called on him in Islamabad on Friday.
He called for holding regular meetings of all bilateral mechanisms and stressed on exploring more opportunities for commercial collaboration, especially in the fields of IT, agriculture, fashion designing, start-ups, agriculture and livestock.
The President also highlighted the scope for accelerating the existing cooperation between the two countries in the fields of pharmaceuticals, electronic machinery parts, dairy products, organic chemicals, paper and articles of iron and steel.
The President asked the Ambassador-designate to make efforts to increase French scholarships for Pakistani students to study in French universities.
He also asked the Ambassador-designate to sensitize the French leadership on increasing trend of marginalizing the minorities in India and Islamophobia, and urgency to resolve the Kashmir dispute as per UN Security Council resolutions.
Meanwhile, President Dr Arif Alvi has underscored the need to further improve existing bilateral relations between Pakistan and Japan particularly for economic, business and human resource development initiatives.
He was talking to Pakistan’s Ambassador-designate to Japan Raza Bashir Tarar, who called on him in Islamabad on Friday.
The President appreciated Japan’s continuous support to Pakistan on the FATF platform and asked the ambassador to convey his gratitude to the government of Japan for its decision to suspend debt repayments due from Pakistan under the Debt Service Suspension Initiative.
He said bilateral trade between the two countries stood at around 2.56 billion dollars which needs be improved with a greater focus on export of Pakistani goods and products to Japan.
While appreciating the support of Japan International Cooperation Agency with Pakistan, Dr Arif Alvi said Japanese assistance should be sought for online training to Pakistani human resources in the fields of IT, digital technologies, artificial intelligence and other skills.
The President stressed on reducing the Japanese tariff to bring Pakistani products at par with its competitors enjoying duty-free access to Japanese markets, especially in the textile sector.
He also asked the Ambassador-designate to sensitize the Japanese leadership on the urgency to resolve the Kashmir dispute as per resolutions of the UN Security Council and on the increasing trend of marginalizing the minorities in India and Islamophobia.
Source: Radio Pakistan