ISLAMABAD - The bilateral trade volume between Pakistan and Uzbekistan could be increased by direct trade through the Afghanistan border, said Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sahibzada Mehboob Sultan on Wednesday.
In a meeting with Uzbekistan Ambassador to Pakistan Furqat Sidiqov, the minister said Uzbekistan’s exporters should be directly accessed by Pakistan cotton importers as the cotton imported through Afghan border last month was actually Uzbek cotton. Hence both the countries should do away with negative market forces, he added.
“We are in need of viable agro-machinery and especially cotton related machinery and tractors, which could be imported from Uzbekistan and in the long run (after the signing of MoU) the technology could be shared with local manufacturers through mutual agreement,” Sultan remarked.
Also speaking on the occasion, the Uzbek ambassador said that Samarkand and Bukhara are unique agriculture centres, where cotton clusters are built for the small farmers, adding that this is a kind of facility for the cotton producers where all the process from growing to packing is done.
It was discussed in the subject meeting that Uzbekistan can expand its tractor and other agro-machinery market in Pakistan. The Uzbek ambassador said that regarding the import of uzbek cotton through Torkham border we can adopt a new approach and centralise the whole system and do away with “shadow economy”.
He also informed that they still have 100,000 metric ton cotton and they can export that. (Monitoring Desk)