RIYADH, 1 February — Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have identified several potential areas of cooperation during the sixth Saudi-Pakistan Joint Economic Commission meeting which concluded here yesterday. The two sides have decided to focus more on cooperation in areas like manpower, investment, agriculture, railways, health, posts and telecommunications, information technology and education.
"In the manpower sector, the two countries have forged closer cooperation, which is evident from the fact the Kingdom is currently recruiting over 1,000 doctors from Pakistan," said Pakistan Finance Minister Shoukat Aziz, while addressing a news conference here yesterday. The press briefing was also attended by Altaf M. Saleem, Pakistani minister of privatization, Tariq Ikram, minister of state and chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau; and Waseem Haqqie, chairman of the Board of Investment.
On the investment front, Aziz said a Saudi company had greed to invest substantially in Pakistan's diamond industry. He pointed out that the commercial banks of Pakistan --Habib Bank, United Bank and National Bank -- had tied up with leading Saudi banks to ensure proper linkage for channeling remittances by expatriate workers, which went up 12 percent this year. He, however, announced a plan to provide incentives to overseas Pakistanis who remit money through banks.
Aziz said Islamabad had signed a deal to secure a loan of $45 million from Bahrain's CitiCorp Islamic Bank for an oil import facility. Some Saudi investors also participated in the loan syndication. At the moment, he said that his country had several offers from the Middle East's financial institutions.
Referring to his talks with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd, Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, Minister of Finance Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf, Aziz said that he sought the support of the Kingdom while dealing with major global financial institutions. He noted that Saudi Arabia was on director boards of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Aziz said the Kingdom had emerged to be the ninth largest importer of Pakistani goods and services. To boost the trade relations further, Islamabad would hold a single country fair in the Kingdom this year. A delegation of Saudi businessmen has also been invited to visit Islamabad this year. This is in addition to an invitation extended by Aziz to Minister of Commerce Osama Faqeeh to visit Pakistan.
He said that Pakistan would support Saudi Arabia's entry into the World Trade Organization.
On trade front, he said, "We would like the level of bilateral trade to improve. The trade gap is mainly because of the rise in oil prices." Pakistani exports to the Kingdom totaled $215 million during the first half of the year 2000. This, however, represents a growth of 28 percent compared to the same period a year before.
Pakistan's share of the Saudi rice market has grown from seven percent to 10 percent this year. Aziz said the Saudi businessmen had offered to buy 250,000 tons of rice and 100,000 tons wheat from Pakistan.
The Pakistani minister received a delegation of senior bankers led by A. Q. Mirza of AlBank AlSaudi AlFransi yesterday. The delegation has proposed to set up a Pakistani Executives Group in Saudi Arabia to promote the commercial interests of the country. The Pakistani minister and his accompanying delegation will hold talks with Saudi businessmen at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry today.
