Envoy stresses exploiting Pak- Spain trade potential

Spanish Ambassador Manuel Duran has said that Pakistan and Spain must exploit their potentiality to give a quantum jump to bilateral trade.

Addressing a function at Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) here on Monday, he said that undisputedly Faisalabad was industrial, commercial and business hub of Pakistan. Being a textile capital, many units are also using Spanish textile machinery.

Therefore, Spanish businessmen are visiting Pakistan despite travel advisory and another delegation from Spain will visit Pakistan during the next week. Regarding dairy, he said that Spain has expertise in food processing. However, interested businessmen must point out their specific field so that their proposals and suggestions are processed on scientific lines.

Regarding fashion industry, he suggested that Pakistani exporters should contact their embassy in Madrid. About visa, he said that as Spanish visa is equally acceptable in all SCHENGEN countries, hence they have to follow the rules very cautiously. Responding to a question raised by Secretary General FCCI Abid Masood, Miguel Pena Commercial Attache of Spain Embassy said that he was ready for exchange of latest economic data of Spain with the FCCI.

Earlier, in his welcome address, President FCCI Rana Sikandar Azam introduced Faisalabad and FCCI. He said that though textile was its iconic identification, yet other sectors including chemicals, rice, sugar, ghee, engineering, poultry and agriculture are also contributing their humble role in its overall uplift. He said that Faisalabad has unique privilege to house Asia's biggest socks manufacturing units, biggest rice and state-of-the-art chemicals' units.

He said that Faisalabad alone is contributing 50 per cent share in total textile exports of Pakistan.