Pakistan eyes 'deepening economic ties with Africa'

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that Islamabad's ‘Engage Africa’ initiative is aimed at expanding Pakistan’s diplomatic footprint and deepening economic engagement with Africa.

He said this while chairing the third virtual meeting on economic diplomacy with Pakistani envoys in African countries on Wednesday.

The minister said that Pakistan’s outreach and presence in Africa is being significantly enhanced under this initiative.

Noting the importance of Africa as the “continent of future”, with 54 countries and a population of 1.3 billion, he said, Pakistan enjoys friendly relations and political goodwill in African countries that need to be translated into a more robust economic partnership.

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Underlining the shift from geopolitics to geo-economics, Qureshi emphasised the importance of economic diplomacy as a key component of modern diplomatic practice.

He said that envoys conference on Africa was held in November 2019, followed by the first-ever Pakistan-Africa Trade Development Conference in Nairobi in January last year. He remarked that the initiative has started paying off, with a 7 per cent growth in Pakistan’s trade with Africa, despite the Covid-19 related challenges.

The foreign minister encouraged envoys to cultivate and broaden mutually beneficial trade and economic partnerships with African countries, focusing on key goals of trade promotion, financial inflows, investments, remittances, tourism and technology transfer.

FM Qureshi has been regularly holding virtual meetings on economic diplomacy with Pakistani envoys in key countries.

Today’s virtual envoys meeting focusing on Africa region is the first of a series of region-specific economic diplomacy meetings scheduled over the coming months.