Embassy of Turkey hopes SIFC will produce good results: CG

LAHORE-Consul General of Turkiye Durmus Bastug has said that the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) is a good step for both the investors and countries as the Embassy of Turkey is closely monitoring the activities of the SIFC and is hopeful that this initiative will produce good results.
He was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry during a meeting with the President LCCI Kashif Anwar. The Consul General further said that the SIFC initiative will bring new investments and will also help in resolving the issues being faced by the existing investors in the country.
He said that Turkiye is aware of the potential of Pakistan as the investors of Turkiye have invested around 2 billion dollars in Pakistan and half of its investments is in Punjab which would hopefully rise to $ 5 billion.
“We want to remove the problems being faced by the investors,” said Durmus Bastug, adding that we are monitoring PTA with Pakistan and will move to the second phase which is FTA after the results of PTA.
LCCI President Kashif Anwar, while appreciating SIFC, said that we are really keen to take a reasonable share in the overall trade of Turkiye. The global exports of Turkiye were around 225 billion dollars while total imports were nearly 271 billion dollars in 2021. Taking the latest bilateral trade figures in consideration, we come to know that the share of Pakistan in total trade of Turkiye is just 0.25 percent.
The LCCI president believed that there are multiple Pakistani sectors where both countries can enhance economic cooperation, especially the pharmaceutical sector of Pakistan secondly the sectors identified in SIFC, which are ideal for joint ventures between the two sides. The other key sectors with immense scope of joint ventures are tourism, information technology, agriculture technology and renewable energy.
He hoped that once PTA creates goodwill and economic gains, both sides can move towards a more comprehensive free trade agreement