Pakistan Has Potential To Enhance Its Uk Exports To £5 Billion

As Pakistan only exports £1.9 billion to the United Kingdom (UK), businessmen have stated that the actual potential of exports is as high as £5 billion. 

Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, the President of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), affirmed, “Pakistan has the potential to enhance its exports to the UK to £5 billion from the current £1.9 billion in FY 2022 within a period of five years.” 

Explaining the elements in Pakistan’s favour when looking at the UK, Iqbal Sheikh said, “There is a huge South Asian diaspora in the UK, competitively-priced products vis-à-vis UK, an existing upward trend in bilateral trade surplus, an upsurge in people-to-people, business-to-business and chamber-to-chamber linkages over the last many months.” 

He further said that “post-covid, there was an increase in demand or inquiries for imports from Pakistan in various sectors including, IT services, value-added textiles leather products, sports goods, fruits and vegetables, gems, jewellery and artefacts.” 

“The Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) needs to direct our commercial counsellors and trade attaches to become active and promote traditional and non-traditional goods in the UK,” as highlighted by Zulfikar Thaver, Chairman of the Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME). 

“Pakistani residents of the UK are always complaining that the supermarkets and shopping malls are filled with Indian goods whereas Pakistani goods are not available,” Thaver said. 

Meanwhile, the Pakistani High Commissioner in the UK, Moazzam Ahmed Khan revealed, “visa facilitation for the business communities of the two sides holds the key to better networking, including trade visits and exhibitions. For this purpose, both governments should work together to ease the visa processing requirements and reduce the processing time.” 

?“The government should work towards winning more concessions from the UK in the form of lower duties and taxes as well as more access to goods originating from Pakistan,” as recommended by Mustafa Mustansir, Head of Research at Taurus Securities Limited. 

FPCCI Senior Vice President, Suleman Chawla highlighted that a “large number of influential Pakistani, British and British-Pakistani business, industry and trade community members participated in the meetings, events and trade promotion activities. This will result in millions of pounds worth of trade, investment and JV agreements.”