“We should step aside our disputes and stand united as a nation in order to defeat terrorism in our country,” said former Sialkot Nazim Mian Naeem Javid at a dinner reception hosted in his honor by Bashir Ahmed Chaudhry, finance secretary of Pakistan Investor’s Forum (PIF).

Naeem, a noted businessman, and former president of Sialkot Airport Authority, is currently in Riyadh to explore opportunities to launch Pakistani "Sub Lime" brand of products in the kingdom.

Naeem belongs to Sialkot, which is internationally renowned for sports goods, leather products, surgical instruments, furniture and cutlery industries.

“Sialkot’s football industry is recognized as the world capital of football production. Top international brands like Adidas, Puma, Nike and many others are buyers of Pakistani hand-stitched footballs along with their labeled bags, garments and accessories,” Naeem added.

According to Naeem, Saudi Arabia has a lot of business potential for Pakistani sports goods manufacturers. “We offer Saudi businessmen to establish their own brand names in order to reduce their buying costs as Pakistan can produce the same, which Saudi Arabia is buying from international traders,” Naeem added while sounding upbeat about the Pak-Saudi business relations.

Naeem said Sialkot’s international airport was one of its kind in the world as it is owned by the private sector. Air Arabia, Shaheen Air, PIA and flydubai are running their flight operations from Sialkot successfully whereas by the addition of Gulf Air and Emirates Airline it has added more value to the world-class business destination. “We are now in contact with Saudi Airlines to start their flights too, which may bring an enormous boost of Air traffic to Sialkot and it will handle transportation of thousands of Umrah and Haj travelers,” he added.

The reception was attended by a select gathering of Pakistanis at the residence of Bashir Chaudhry. Businessman and industrialist Faryad Chaudhry, Khalid Chaudhry, chairman PIF, Chaudhry Pervez, Asghar Chishti, Rashid Butt, Javid Akhter Javid, Ikram Chaudhry, Mahmud Bajwa, Imran Jajvi, Faiz Jutt, Atlas Khan and many others were present at the reception.