Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan Erik Beishembiev urges business community to avail good investment opportunities through joint ventures in pharmaceutical, agriculture, education and tourism sectors
Abid Raza
LAHORE-Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan Erik Beishembiev has urged business community to avail good investment opportunities through joint ventures in pharmaceutical, agriculture, education and tourism sectors.
“Kyrgyzstan is not developed in pharmaceutical sector and offers great opportunities to the Pakistani pharma companies”, he said during a meeting with President of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry Mian Tariq Misbah. Vice President Tahir Manzoor Chaudhry, former Senior Vice President Amjad Ali Jawa, former Vice President Zeshan Khalil and Executive Committee members were also present.
The ambassador said that his country greatly valued relations with Pakistan and that was why it sought further diversification and strengthening of the relations. He said that Kyrgyz-Pakistani historical relations could be traced back centuries ago.
“Our peoples have long-time and close cultural and spiritual ties”, he said. He said that direct flights between the two countries on regular basis would help improve trade and cooperation in tourism sector. He said that both countries were rich in mineral resources, have high skilled human resources, excellent opportunities for developing industry and agriculture, attracting foreign investments for joint production and supply of goods. He said that Kyrgyzstan is interested in development of short transportation links through its territory between Central Asia and China and Pakistan with access to the Gwadar and Karachi ports, using railway and roads, which are being constructed in the framework of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Today, shortest roads are connecting China to Kyrgyzstan through two border mountain passes in Kyrgyzstan – Torugart in the North and – Erkeshtam in the South, located only about 200-km from Chinese city of Kashgar. He said that Pakistani businessmen can invest individually or through joint ventures in Kyrgyzstan. He said that Pakistan can use Kyrgyzstan as a gateway to enter into the EU market and can avail benefits from GSP Plus status.
Mian Tariq Misbah appreciated the Kyrgyz Ambassador for keeping good liaison with LCCI on regular basis to find new avenues for increasing the trade and economic ties between two countries. He said that very few items are being traded between Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan for the last many years. The main reason of such a low level of two way trade which stood at 2.2 million dollars in 2019 is little knowledge about each other’s markets. He said that Pakistan’s exports to Kyrgyzstan are just 2.17 million dollars while the global imports of Kyrgyzstan are touching 5 billion dollars. There is a great scope for Pakistan to enhance its exports to Kyrgyzstan in the sectors of pharmaceuticals, value added textiles, agriculture products, surgical instruments and sports Goods. He said that the pharmaceutical sector deserves special mention as Pakistan has made great strides in this sector after the COVID pandemic. He said that Kyrgyzstan can also help Pakistan to enhance its exports to the EU under the GSP Plus regime.
