ALKHOBAR, 4 June 2004 — The Pakistan Community Council held a reception here this week to bid farewell to Mohammad Saleem, commercial consul at the Pakistan Consulate General in Jeddah, who will be returning to Pakistan on completing his tenure.
Members of the PCC spoke about Saleem’s efforts to increase exports and improve trade relations between Pakistan and the Kingdom.
When Saleem came to Saudi Arabia four years ago, Pakistan’s total exports to the Kingdom were in the region of $185 million. Now the exports stand at $477 million — a staggering 147 percent increase.
Saleem also modernized the IT facilities at the commercial section and developed a website that now caters to the requirements of businessmen seeking information about Pakistani markets. The website has information on about 12,000 Pakistani exporters. It also lists 7,000 Saudi companies that can be potential customers for Pakistani products. The websites, www.pakarabportal.net and pak-sauditrade.com, are both in English and Arabic. They contain 25 market studies and list 1,230 items which Pakistani businessmen could supply to the Saudi markets.
Saleem said that in spite of all his efforts, Pakistan’s bedsheet exports have suffered. Earlier, Pakistan held 75 percent of the Saudi market share in bedsheets. But due to some unscrupulous businessmen who exported substandard sheets, the country’s export suffered a loss of between $60 million and 70 million.
Sajid Abbasi, chief patron of the PCC, said that he was particularly impressed with Saleem’s simplicity. “During official tours, Saleem was entitled to stay in five star hotels. But he always stayed in low-cost budget hotels saying, he was a poor diplomat of a poor country.”
Javed Inam, president of the PCC, said Saleem had contributed a lot to Pakistan’s economy by his efforts.
Others who spoke on the occasion were Liaquat Anjum, Waheed Aslam, Zahoor Chaudhary, Maqsood Qureishi, Khalil Choudhary and Hashmat Khan.
