LAHORE, July 22: British High Commissioner Mark Lyall Grant disclosed on Tuesday that his country has decided to make a four-fold increase in its aid programme to Pakistan
Addressing the members of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry here, he said the aid programme was being multiplied with an investment of $100 million in Pakistan.
He said the security position has improved in Pakistan and “now we can re-establish our trade missions in the country.”
He said that Britain’s new trade investment minister was scheduled to visit Pakistan in October next to discuss the prospects of increasing British investment here. He hoped that the British minister’s visit would help boost the commercial and economic investment relations between the two countries.
He said that Britain had been making both long-term and short-term investment in Pakistan and hoped that it could do a lot more in future.
He said that despite the fact that Britain was the largest trading partner of Pakistan the bilateral trade between the two countries was disappointing. It was just about $1 billion.
“It is this basis on which we should build our future trade relationship.”
He said most of the multinational companies were worried about the security position in Pakistan in the past. Now they had realized that the security position was improving and there was a good opportunity of resuming their trade and business in the country.
He said the British government
had also relaxed its guidelines on export licence for business in defence items.
Mr Lyall Grant said the British government had changed its travel advice which had been a matter of great concern for the business community. It was a major shift in the policy. He disclosed that the British government was also establishing links of the British Airways with Pakistan.
He said that a British Airways security team would be visiting Pakistan next month to study the possibility of developing links between the UK and Islamabad.
Referring to his country’s visa policy for Pakistan the British HC said
the fundamental problem was that
the number of visa applicants was increasing at the rate of 20 per cent every year with the present figure being at 150,000. In the next two years, the number would swell to 200,000 per year.
He said the British government had not adequate staff or infrastructure to cope with such a large number of visa applications. The situation in visa offices had changed after 9/11 when these had to be closed down at Karachi and Lahore.
He said that previously visas for persons along with their children were not allowed. Now the British government had decided to allow visa for children as well.
He said that priority would be given to visas for students who numbered about 6,000. He said there was a great possibility of reopening the British visa office at Karachi.
He said a visa office was opened at Lahore on Sept 12, 2001, which was “not a happy day”. It had to be closed down after three weeks for the place where it was opened had some security problems.
He said it was not possible to open a visa office at Lahore as a new building in some green area would require an investment of about three million pounds sterling which the government was not in a position to afford at present. Thus Lahore people would have to depend upon the courier service as at present, he added. LCCI president Yawar Irfan also spoke on the occasion.
