Ambassador of Nepal Tapas Adhikari, Ambassador of Azerbaijan Khazar Farhadov and Ambassador of Turkmenistan Atadjan Movlamov visited the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Monday and had a detailed discussion on trade and economic ties between Pakistan and their respective countries. LCCI President Mian Nauman Kabir, Senior Vice President Mian Rehman Aziz Chan and Vice President Haris Ateeq also spoke, while executive committee members were also present. Nepalese Ambassador Tapas Adhikari said his country sees Pakistan as a preferred partner and is keen to expand trade relations. He said that Nepal chamber had inked a memorandum of understanding with the Lahore Chamber and its implementation would help increase bilateral trade. While calling for exchange of trade delegations between the two countries, the ambassador said that he himself would bring a delegation of Nepalese businesspeople to Pakistan soon. Azerbaijani Ambassador Khazar Farhadov said the Lahore Chamber is playing a key role in maintaining good economic relations between the two countries. He said that Pakistan is a strong country and has supported Azerbaijan in testing times. “We want to further improve the trade relations with Pakistan,” he said and added that cultural cooperation should be promoted. Turkmen Ambassador Atadjan Movlamov said his country gives great importance to better relations with Pakistan and wants to speed up work on Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project. He said that a logistics centre has been established for transit trade in Turkmenistan, but one route cannot meet the requirements, so access to the ports of Karachi and Gwadar is very important. Talking to the Ambassador of Nepal, LCCI President Mian Nauman Kabir said that Pakistan and Nepal are members of SAARC and enjoy friendly relations since 1960s. “We keep emphasizing well-devised strategy for ensuring regional peace through maintaining trade and economic relations among SAARC countries. Nepal, being a land-locked country between China and India, can understand the importance of regional trade better than others,” the LCCI president said. He said that Nepal has import-oriented economy whose imports are far greater than exports. In year 2021, the value of its total imports was around $15.8 billion against the total exports which were just $1.7 billion. Mian Nauman Kabir said that these are noticeable facts that Nepal has to depend a lot on India and China for importing basic materials. The shares of India and China were almost 61 per cent and 15 per cent respectively in total imports which amounted to $12 billion in 2021. He said that as far as trade ties between Pakistan and Nepal are concerned, we need to adopt innovative ways to know more about each other’s potential areas. Despite having long and cordial relations, the volume of total trade between two countries remained limited to $7.3 million during 2021. While talking to the Ambassador of Azerbaijan, the LCCI President said that Pakistan and Azerbaijan have unique historical, religious, cultural and political commonalities which are beyond the geographical distances. Both Pakistan and Azerbaijan have good diplomatic relations “but we have yet to succeed in translating these ties into maintaining sound bilateral trade”. The LCCI president said that according to the trade figures taken from the State Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan’s exports to Azerbaijan in 2021-22 were $6.3 million, while our imports were merely $1.5 million. This essentially means that the total trade volume between two countries is even less than $10 million. There is a need to explore the ways of increasing trade between both countries. During the meeting with Ambassador of Turkmenistan, Mian Nauman Kabir said though Pakistan and Turkmenistan enjoy friendly and cordial relations, “our business and economic relations have not been adequately developed. We have observed that very few items are being traded between Pakistan and Turkmenistan for the last many years. The main reason of such a low level of two way trade which stood at $7 million in 2020 and $14 million in 2021 is the little knowledge about each other’s markets.”