News From : DagangHalal.com (01 Nov 2009)
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 1 (APP): Foreign Minister, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi Sunday said the D-8 has a great potential to bring about quantum jump in trade and development in member nations by complementing each other in various sectors and sharing each others best practices and strengths. He said this while talking to Malaysian electronic and print media soon after his arrival here at Malaysian capital.
The Minister is visiting Kuala Lumpur to attend D-8 Council of Ministers.
Minister said that the D-8 countries have a great potential for trade and investment and to cooperate with each other in multiple fields such as agriculture, energy, tourism, human and rural development.
He said Pakistan is committed to objectives of D-8 to increase economic integration and strengthen economies of the member countries and added Pakistan greatly appreciates any initiative that may enhance cooperation among the D-8 countries.
He said there is, however a need, to make the D-8 more effective relevant and vibrant organization capable of transforming the vision of D-8 into reality.
He urged the public and private sectors of D-8 countries to come forward with innovative business approaches, modern technology and harmonized trade policies to boost intra-trade momentum in the Group which in turn will enlarge the size of economies of D-8 countries as well as alleviate poverty from our region.
“Pakistan has already a number of bilateral agreements with D-8 member countries. We are also in the process of negotiating bilateral and regional trading arrangements with D-8 countries,” Mr. Qureshi added.
Talking about Pakistan-Malaysia ties, the Minister said Pakistan look forward to translate the tremendous goodwill into increased engagement in economic, trade and developmental-linkages and joint-ventures.
He said there is huge scope and potential for joint-ventures and investments, specially in areas such as Islamic-finance, halal-industries, energy, housing and infrastructure development, telecommunications and media as well as education, health, agriculture and human resource development.
The Minister said Malaysia and Pakistan have achieved a bilateral FTA which is the first among OIC member countries.
He expressed the hope business-leader on both sides will utilize the benefits, flowing out of the FTA, to achieve manifold increase in our trade, investment and economic cooperation.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi specifically highlighted the scope of bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and Malaysia in Halal Food Sector.
He said Pakistan’s huge land mass and population of animal stocks couples with Malaysia expertise in technology and marketing can enable both the countries to capture major share of global halal food market worth of billion of dollars.
Mr. Qureshi said a strong business delegation concerning the Halal food sector is accompanying the Minister including President, E-commerce Gateway Karachi, CEO, K&N Group Karachi, CEO, Zenith Associates, Karachi, CEO, Al Shaheer Corporation, Karachi, Chairman, Shezan Ltd, Lahore, Chairman Shan Food Industries & Chairman, Mitchells Pakistan.
The business delegation will hold separate meeting with the relevant Malaysian entities and official organization to discuss the joint strategy to substantially increase the bilateral cooperation in the Halal food and chalk out a joint strategy to capture Global Halal Market, he added.