KARACHI: Ambassador of Kazakhstan Barlybay Sadykov has advised the business and industrial community of Karachi to look into the possibility of setting up their business units in Kazakhstan which offers a lot of opportunities in a business friendly environment with duties exemptions for up to five years and one-window solution for foreign investors.
“Kazakhstan’s economy is rapidly developing and we have attracted foreign investments of US$300 billion. We are also ranked on 28th position in World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking”, Kazakhstani Ambassador said while speaking at a meeting during his visit to the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
“Although the population of Kazakhstan stood at 80 million which is less than the population of Karachi city but we provide easy access to the huge population in Eurasia including China and Russia”, he added.
General Secretary Businessmen Group AQ Khalil, President KCCI Junaid Esmail Makda, Senior Vice President Khurram Shahzad, Vice President Asif Sheikh Javaid and KCCI Managing Committee Members also attended the meeting.
The Envoy further stated that Kazakhstan was one of the largest economies of Central Asia with abundant oil, gas, metals, uranium titanium and other mineral resources while European Union, United States, Russia and China were the main trading partners of Kazakhstan.
He informed that Kazakhstan also holds excellent human resource and its population was highly educated with 100 percent literacy rate while the country has some of the best universities of the world as they adopted the Soviet Education System which was very advanced.
He reiterated that Pakistani businessmen must take advantage of the unique business opportunities offered by Kazakhstan, as it would not only help them earn huge profits but would also enhance the volume of bilateral trade between the two countries.
“Pakistani business community can look into the possibility investing or undertaking joint ventures in different sectors including agriculture, textile, surgical instrument, pharmaceutical, leather, sports goods and other products that have a great demand in Kazakhstan and beyond”, he added.
He said, “We want to diversify Kazakhstan’s economy and are open for any kind of business and joint ventures. We want to transform our country to an industrial and agricultural state.”
The Ambassador pointed out that although Pakistan and Kazakhstan have strong cultural and religious relationship since long and have been enjoying excellent political relations as well but the economic and trade relations were not so well as hardly a meager trade of just US$28 million was taking place between the two brotherly countries which was way too low as compared to the trade potential in almost all the sectors of the economy. “Low trade volume between the two countries is mainly due to lack of information about the potential sectors and available opportunities which requires collective efforts from both sides in order to create a win-win situation for both the countries”, he added.
Earlier, President KCCI Junaid Esmail Makda, in his remarks, stated that as Pakistan has been facing serious energy crises, Kazakhstan can help in dealing with this issue and both countries can come up with some kind of an agreement pertaining to electricity and gas supply from Kazakhstan which is blessed with abundant natural resources including gas, uranium, precious metals and minerals etc.
He also sought the Ambassador’s assistance in identifying numerous areas of cooperation and potential sectors so that the business community of Karachi could look into the possibility of introducing their products and services in Kazakhstani market which would surely help in enhancing the existing meager trade volume between the two countries.
He said that the business community of Kazakhstan can also look into the possibility of setting up their business units in Karachi which has two fully operational ports and was easily accessible because of its strategic location.
Underscoring the need for establishing air and land connectivity between the two countries, President KCCI further advised Kazakhstan to become part of CPEC project which would provide the shortest route through the newly developed Gwadar Port.
In order to explore trade and investment opportunities and bring the business communities of the two brotherly countries more close to each other, Junaid Makda expressed his eagerness of sending Karachi Chamber’s delegation to Kazakhstan and signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Astana Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
“For improving trade relationship between our countries, we first need to raise awareness about potential sectors amongst the business circles”, President KCCI advised, adding that the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of both countries will have to play the lead role in this regard.[the_ad id=”31605″]