ISLAMABAD: Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) recently hosted a business delegation from Busra, Turkey, and deliberated on further improving bilateral trade and economic relations between Pakistan and Turkey. The mission was led by Inegol Deputy Mayor, Turgay Yel, and featured businessmen from chemicals, steel, furniture, ceramics and other sectors. Yel also spoke on the occasion, and remarked that after coming to Pakistan, he had realized the great potential for Turkish investors and businessmen in Pakistan . More than five hundred Turkish businessmen have already visited Pakistan in the last few months while more would come to Pakistan to explore business and investment opportunities. Pakistan and Turkey have long enjoyed cordial relations, which should be transformed into strong business partnerships between the two countries, he added. Yel stressed that the business communities of both countries have to make serious efforts to upgrade their bilateral trade to higher levels in order to gain mutual benefit. He also invited ICCI delegation to visit Turkey and noted that a frequent exchange of trade delegations was the best way to explore business matchmakings and further improve the two-way trade between the two brotherly countries. He then thanked ICCI for hosting the Turkish delegation in such a warm and hospitable manner. In his welcoming remarks, ICCI President, Atif Ikram Sheikh, also asserted that the potential of economic cooperation between Pakistan and Turkey had not yet been fully tapped despite the two countries having similar economic structures as well as motivated entrepreneurs. The bilateral trade between Pakistan and Turkey was said to exceed USD 1 billion in 2011, however, its gradual decline to around USD 600 million in 2015 was also noted as a bad omen for both countries. Both countries should focus on diversification of their trade in order to tackle the limited range of items that the current volume of trade featured, he added. Sheikh also opined that Turkey had imposed additional safeguard duties on some Pakistani products including fabrics, hand knotted carpets and others, which should be revised to improve bilateral trade. He believed that Turkish investors should explore investment opportunities in various sectors of Pakistan’s economy including energy, tourism, information technology, food processing, agro-based products, dairy development, furniture, hotel industry, resorts developments and others. ICCI also assured Turkish investors of their support in enhancing investment in Pakistan.