‘Good year in Pakistan’: Dutch stand by Pakistan in war on terror, says envoy

Marcel de Vink says improved security situation will help in attracting new investors to the country

ISLAMABAD: The Dutch government has assured Pakistan that it stands ready to work with the country in the fight against extremism. Its top diplomat in Pakistan, Marcel de Vink, pointed out that the improved security situation will help in attracting new investors to the country.

“It is not an easy task and the fight against extremism will be long and hard. But Pakistan is not on its own, the Netherlands stands ready to work with Pakistan in this field,” Marcel de Vink, ambassador of the Netherlands, told The Express Tribune during an interview on the occasion of the King’s Day celebration marked as a ‘Good year in Pakistan’.

“Improving the security situation will be helpful in attracting new investors,” he said, adding that as Pakistan’s exports to the Netherlands have increased 24% in the past six months, the focus had to shift from aid to trade for further improving the bilateral trade and investment in Pakistan.

The envoy recalled that the Netherlands had recognised Pakistan very early and established an embassy in Karachi in 1948. Since then, he said, as the Dutch grew to be among the 20 biggest economies in the world, it has also become the 9th largest trading partner of Pakistan.



Vink said while security challenges are well known to foreign investors they are also aware of encouraging steps taken by Islamabad in the fight against terrorism and extremism from which the country and its people have suffered so much.

“Looking back,” the he said, “It has certainly been a good year for Pakistan-Dutch relations. Our trade figures went up considerably,” adding that Dutch demand for Pakistani textiles has increased by almost a third while planeloads of Dutch dairy cattle have started to arrive in Pakistan.

The envoy said an agricultural trade mission and the Dutch minister for Development Cooperation and International Trade are also scheduled to return to Pakistan soon.

The Netherlands government is not just focusing on strengthening the economic relationship between the two countries but also actively extending its efforts in areas such as human rights and building technical and vocational training centres for reproductive health and rights.

“I strongly believe in a broad relationship between both our countries,” he said. The Netherlands will also continue to engage with the government of Pakistan and civil society in the area of women empowerment, human rights and labour rights in the context of GSP Plus,” he added.

Marcel de Vink said in the recent years, a series of high level engagement between Amsterdam and Islamabad has resulted in ties flourishing between the two. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had visited the northwestern European country last year for the nuclear security summit and premiers of the two nations also met in September in New York, he added.

He went on to say that where high level political engagement was important, the relations between the two countries were shaped with an increased people-to-people contact.

Vink had visited Pakistan for the first time in 2005 as a tourist. “I was drawn to the country and wanted to see for myself. It was a great experience,” he recalled.

At the dinner reception hosted in Islamabad to celebrate the King’s Day, Vink said the many positive results of the past year would not have been possible without the countless friends of the Netherlands in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2015.