KARACHI: Subsequent to the eight Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Swiss Business Council (SBC) held in Karachi on 31 October 2016, the board elected SBC office bearers for the term year 2016-17. Farhat Ali was elected as the President SBC, Shahab Rizvi as the vice President, Naveed Choudhary as the Secretary & KM Iqbal as the Treasurer. The other board members are Asif Ikram, Andreas Aepli, Mujtaba Rahim, SF Mazhar & Sirajuddin Aziz.

The board is represented by acknowledged leaders from the corporate sector with rich global and local credentials and passion to serve the cause of business development between the two countries. The Swiss Consulate at Karachi & the Embassy at Islamabad are the strategic supporters of SBC.

Switzerland’s ranking of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Pakistan slides with-in the first five countries and in many sectors on number 1 position, notably, in Water and Milk business (Nestle).

SBC works in close partnership with Swiss Asian Chamber of Commerce (SACC) and Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) – both headquartered in Zurich. SACC conducts global business networking & links up Swiss and Asian markets stretching from Mongolia to Vietnam and also networking within Asian markets. S-GE works around the globe to support Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) & facilitates their link up with global partners. SBC, in partnership with SACC Zurich, plays a significant role in projecting the true positive perception of Pakistan to the world by participating in global forums, notably, World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos where global political & business leaders and opinion makers meet every year. SBC interaction with global business leaders and the joint efforts of SBC & S-GE has motivated Swiss SME to partners with SME in Pakistan through technology transfer, foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and exports.

SBC target for 2016 -17 is to continue to work on enhancing the global perception of Pakistan, whereas, the core task is to extensively work on partnering Swiss and Pakistani SME to enhance FDI and exports of goods & services. Pakistan, with depleting exports and FDI is in dire need of every bit of it. —PR