The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, on Tuesday, welcomed the 9-member parliamentary delegation led by Yerlan Kushanov, Chairman of the Kazakhastan Parliament (Lower House).
After welcoming the delegation, PM Sharif highlighted the special nature of Pakistan-Kazakhstan ties which are deeply rooted in history, religion and culture. He noted that Pakistan is keen to empower cooperation with the Central Asian nation, mainly Kazakhastan.
While recognizing his meeting with Kazakhstani President, Qasim Jomart Tokaliev on the sidelines of the SICA summit in Astana and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, PM Sharif said that the two sides had fruitful conversations to promote ties. He noted the need to establish and empower the bilateral ties mainly in the fields of transport, energy, transit trade as well as logistics.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that, he is looking ahead to the visit of the Kazakhstani President to Pakistan. Moreover, he informed that, “Pakistan will sooner host a summit of Central Asian states which are focusing on road and rail connectivity to promote regional trade and investment.”
Meanwhile, Yerlan Kushanov briefed the Prime Minister during the Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group’s meeting, which took place during the ongoing visit of the parliamentary delegation to Kazakhstan.
He further focused on the requirement for the exchange of parliamentary delegations, which would further promote people-to-people exchanges between the two brotherly nations.
He said that, “Kazakhastan can benefit from the big market of Pakistan.” He has also shown keen interest in bilateral trade and contacts, cooperation in the pharmaceutical industry as well as surgical and sports equipment.
He added that, “The current bilateral trade is only 95 million dollars which is not in line with the vast trade potential between the two nations.”
At the same time, Pakistani PM Sharif said that bilateral trade could easily be doubled in a short period of time. On behalf of the people & government of Kazakhstan, the Chairman of the Lower House of the Parliament of Kazakhstan extended his sincere grief to the victims of the recent devastating floods in Pakistan.
