The sense of co-operation and mutual understanding which exists with Russia is of immense value for the Pakistan. As a result, exchange of high profile Government delegations and entrepreneurs' exchanges kept on rise. Both sides actively participated in exhibitions organised reciprocally in Russia and Pakistan.
In an unprecedented exchange between Russia and Pakistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Islamabad in October 2012 while Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani flew to Russia for consolidating progress in defence co-operation. Russia and Pakistan have convergence of views on Afghanistan, regional stability and counter-narcotics efforts.
"Russia additionally sees Pakistan as a country playing an important role in countering terrorism and achievement of its vision of regional connectivity. Accordingly, Russia moved to bolster its economic and security co-operation with Pakistan. First, it was a high-powered delegation that came to Islamabad in September 2012 and signed memorandums of understanding about three important sectors of our economy: expansion and modernisation of Pakistan Steel Mills, co-operation in the Railways and in energy."
Russia's deputy minister for energy and representatives of leading energy giant Gazprom had attended the Pak-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on 10th September 2012. In the meeting, Gazprom representatives had given a presentation on the pipeline and reiterated the interest during a meeting with President Zardari.
Apart from that, Russia is also interested in the Central Asia-South Asia electricity transmission from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan (CASA-1000), and the construction of rail tracks and motor roads from Tajikistan to Pakistan to create new trade routes in the region. Under the MoUs, Russia will provide assistance of $300 to $500 million for the modernisation and expansion of Pakistan Steel Mills. It will also help in constructing New Jamshoro Power Plant of 500MW capacity. Russia is interested in Tarbela-4, Keyal Khwar and CASA-1000 projects as well.
Imports from RF:
To face the challenges of Globalisation the Government of Pakistan had carried out economic reforms to make Pakistan's economy competitive. Russia is in a position to assist us in developing our infrastructure, modernisation of our Industrial and agriculture sector, Human resource development and boosting the competitiveness of our industries.
Russia can help us in the development of Water & power, oil & gas and heavy industrial complex. Chemicals, fertilisers, wood pulp, iron & steel etc, can be imported at very competitive prices.
Exports to RF: Pakistan is the 3rd largest textile exporting country in the world where as Russia is the 3rd largest textile importing country in the world after USA & EU. These facts are providing tremendous opportunities for the promotion and development of textile trade between the two countries, except textile Pakistan can exports to Russia rice, sports goods, leather goods, surgical instruments, pharmaceuticals and many more.
Investments:
BOI, SBOI had many projects to offer in mining, wind energy, solar energy, agro economy, constructions and service provisions to support the technological investments in Pakistan. Thar energy and coal officials invite the attention of Russia to invest in Thar coal projects for producing cheap eclectic power as Russia has a very long history and strength of expertise in mining, power generation and heavy duty machinery.
The consumer goods market in Russia consists of 2.27 trillion dollar and if a proper strategy is adopted than Pakistan can surge its consumer goods export to Russia up to one billion dollars within a year. Therefore I will request the Government and private sector to come forward to work jointly in providing the trade facilities on huge scale in removing the trade barriers, which are hampering our exports. To enhance the trade volume between the two countries, the PRBC of FPCCI has submitted some proposals to both the Governments which I hope after implementation will make the breakthrough in the bilateral trade relations.
(The writer is Chairman, Pak-Russia Business Council of FPCCI.)