Spanish businessmen regularly visit Pakistan despite travel advisory

Business team will visit Faisalabad, Lahore and Karachi

FAISALABAD: Spanish businessmen are regularly visiting Pakistan despite a travel advisory and a delegation will land next week, which will visit Faisalabad in addition to holding meetings in Lahore and Karachi, said Spanish Ambassador Manuel Duran.

Addressing a function at the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) on Monday, the envoy said undisputedly Faisalabad was the industrial, commercial and business hub of Pakistan. “Being a textile capital, many local units are using Spanish textile machinery,” he added.

Talking about trade potential of the two countries, Duran said it was a bilateral process and voiced hope that it would grow satisfactorily in the coming years.

He said Italy’s expertise lay in food processing, however, interested businessmen must point out their specific fields so that their proposals and suggestions could be processed on scientific lines.  He asked Pakistan’s exporters to contact their embassy in Madrid in order to work on fine-tuning the fashion industry.

Speaking on the occasion, FCCI President Rana Sikandar Azam said though textile was an iconic identification of Faisalabad, other sectors including chemical, rice, sugar, ghee, engineering, poultry and agriculture had also contributed to the city’s uplift.

“Trade between Pakistan and Spain has grown phenomenally after the grant of GSP Plus facility to the former,” he said, adding that a trade delegation of Faisalabad had already participated in ITMA 2019 fair while many Pakistani exporters were also manufacturing leading Spanish brands.

Former FCCI president Mian Javed Iqbal stressed the need for direct contact between business communities of the two countries and voiced hope that Spanish businessmen would also establish their footprints in Pakistan following the example of China and other countries.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2019.

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