The Swedish Ambassador visited Punjab Board of Investment & Trade and met the senior officials in order to discuss increasing capacity of economic cooperation between the two countries through the establishment of the Swedish Council.
She emphasized that Swedish economy has built its wealth through trade hence she aimed to foster economic cooperation by using the Embassy of Sweden as a platform and focal for exchange of activities for establishing Swedish values.
Sheexplained that Business Sweden was identified as the flagship of investment and trade promoting organization and stressed the need to increase interactions between various government agencies to explore opportunities. Business Sweden is working on compiling a directory directory that will be put on business council website and will help merge and link Swedish companies with Pakistan, this directory will be used as a basic tool to inform Swedish companies of opportunities and help embassies to deal with country specific queries.
While talking about the Active international Swedish companies Tetra Pack, Volvo, IKEA and H&M, the Swedish ambassador went on to confirm interest from Volvo – to set up a plant, IKEA and H&M procure large share of their textile products from Pakistan, Tetra Pack to open recycling unit in Pakistan.
The Ambassador also briefed on the Smart Cities event to be held in Lahore on 4th July and highlighted that the concept of Smart Cities will provide solutions to a range of challenges related to urban growth, transport, energy, waste management, water and sanitation, governance etc. The platform can be used to showcase progress made by that committee and the level of collaboration between Sweden and Punjab. She added, Syed Babar Ali, Hon. Consul of Sweden in Pakistan shall be invited as a special chief guest.
Senior officials at PBIT also briefed about International Seminar on Business Opportunities in Punjab (ISBOP2) and in result Swedish Ambassador assured complete participation and cooperation. On the contrary, Director PBIT assured Punjab government’s participation and assistance in the Smart Cities Event and that a meeting of the committee will be called to discuss its scope.
Hence the meeting concluded on mutual consent that both sides should begin work on matching potentials and building sectoral collaboration by exchanging progress details.