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Syria keen to buy
fertiliser, wheat, rice
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Syria on Thursday agreed to further
enhance and strengthen the existing trade cooperation between
the two countries with the latter showing interest in
Pakistani products like fertilisers, wheat, rice and sugar.
"Syria needs fertilisers, wheat, rice and sugar from Pakistan
and we are looking what we can supply from these products,"
Commerce Minister Abdul Razak Dawood told APP after the
signing of a Protocol Agreement between the two countries at
the conclusion of the fourth session of Pakistan-Syria Joint
Ministerial Commission (JMC) here.
The Syrian side was led by Dr Ghassan El Rifai, Minister of
Economy and Foreign Trade, while Pakistani delegation was led
by Minister for Commerce and Industries, Abdul Razak Dawood.
Dawood informed the delegation that the discussion between
Pakistan and the Syrian delegation covered the areas of
cooperation like Information Technology, engineering sector
and general products, hoping that it will boost exports.
He said Syria was also interested in Pakistan's
telecommunication and railways sectors, adding, there are also
prospects of direct investment from Syria but not immediately.
"We have given an offer to Syrian government to allow their
products to come into Pakistan and hope vice versa", he said,
adding, "I am hopeful that with the Syrian economy opening up,
there will be a lot of opportunities".
Syrian minister told APP that the `Protocol Agreement' signed
by the two sides was a comprehensive agreement, different from
previous ones, in which we have introduced new areas of
cooperation like services sector and other related areas. "So
it is comprehensive in the way that it touches all practical
sectors of both the economies and we have agreed that this
time efforts will be made to translate these words into
action.
He further informed that the two sides agreed not to limit
just to the Protocol but would think about opportunities of
cooperation as they arrive. The Syrian Minister said, we also
talked about few things that are even outside of Protocol,
which came to our attention and we want to work on that
immediately. To a question, he said, we are cooperating
firstly in general trade and secondly other areas like
transport, telecommunications, science and technology, and now
we are introducing a very important aspect of cooperation i.e.
investment.
courtesy Daily The News, 5
April, 2002
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Pakissan.com;
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