Representatives from the leading British garments designers NEXT, British Home Stores, Tesco Super Stores and many others would be flying to the port city Karachi to attend the gala, Pakistan High Commission sources told newsmen here on Tuesday.
EPB Chairman Tariq Ikram was here recently to urge the British investors to attend the exhibition.
Overseas Pakistanis too are not lagging behind as a delegation of Pakistan British Trade and Investment Forum led by its Deputy Chairman Sahibzada Jehangir is already in Pakistan to attend the Expo, while the representatives of UK Pakistan Overseas Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Newham Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and other leading businessmen will soon be travelling to Karachi.
The single biggest foreign investor in Pakistan is an overseas Pakistani from Britain Sir Anwar Pervaiz who had invested Sterling pounds 250 million. Over 200 British companies were already doing business in Pakistan and reaping the dividends.
Pakistan's High Commissioner to Britain Dr Maleeha Lodhi has been striving hard to promote Pak-UK trade relations while she never misses any opportunity to urge expatriates to utilise investor-friendly environment to both earn dividends and serve the country of their origin.
Britain is the largest trading partner of Pakistan in Europe and the fourth largest in the world. The trade between the two countries during the last financial year was over dollars 1.3 billion. The balance of trade with Britain is in favour of Pakistan as its exports to the UK in the first quarter of 2003-04 were 940.711 million dollars while imports in the same period were 432.567 million dollars.
Pakistan's exports to Britain in the year 2002-03 were 787.973 million dollars while these were 659.071 million dollars in the year 2001-02. Its imports from Britain in the same period were 356.174 million dollars and 356.475 million dollars, respectively.
The total trade between the two countries in the same period was 1,373.3 million dollars while it was 1,144.1 million dollars in the year 2002-03.
Expo Pakistan is a gateway to the true commercial and cultural richness of Pakistan and would provide an opportunity to the investors from across the world to see the value-added products of the country at one place and interact with one another. The country's exports have registered 43 percent growth during the last four years.
It was being organised at a time when the country had achieved an economic turn around and all its macroeconomic indicators were positive. Its Gross Domestic Product had increased to 6.4 percent, which was expected to go up to seven percent this year and eight percent to the next few years.
The country's exports reached 13.3 billion dollars for the first time last year, which were 7.5 billion dollars in the year 2000. These can soar to 14 billion dollars in this year while these are expected to reach 15 billion dollars in the coming years.
The inflation, which used to be 10 to 17 percent four years ago, has now been brought down to four percent which is being maintained. Bank interests, which ranged 12 to 22 percent some years back, have been brought down to 2.5 percent while an average interest rate is around four to five percent. Similarly, Foreign Exchange Reserves are up to over dollars 12 billion, which are enough for one-year imports.
The current investment-friendly ambience has been the outcome of the government's philosophy of moving away from the projectionist environment to a more open environment.