RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s President Suraj Vaidya is arriving in Pakistan on Tuesday (today) on a five-day visit.

During the visit he would meet local business tycoons and government officials to accelerate the efforts of the SAARC Chamber for promotion of economic, trade and investment linkages across the region.

SAARC Chamber’s Vice President Pak chapter Iftikhar Ali Malik told media, here on Monday that Suraj Vaidya, who is himself a leading industrialist and investor from Nepal, is arriving Karachi on Tuesday. He would reach Islamabad on December 06, where he will meet important government officials and traders.

He said Vaidya assured him that being President of SAARC CCI his focus will continue to better connectivity and establishment of SAARC industrial parks for better investment facilitation.

He said there is dire need of hour to utilize this platform to bring prosperity in the region.

“If we utilize our potential in its true order, our region could make higher pace of development within next decades although currently it is lagging behind in terms of development,” he added.

Iftikhar Malik stressed that there is a huge potential for a country like Pakistan to benefit from regional integration.

“Several issues including restricted coverage of the trade agreement, poor physical infrastructure, and inadequate trade facilitation have also minimised the relevance of the trade pact,” adding he said Pakistan was fully committed to promote regional cooperation. However, he added a combined effort by all member states was required to achieve the objectives.

To integrate the region, he said the CPEC is a vision and a roadmap of regional development and complements the other regional connectivity initiatives as CPEC would benefit the whole SAARC region, adding that the only viable way to uplift the downtrodden strata of the SAARC region is to make joint efforts.