25 September 2004	Saturday	09 Shaban 1425

KARACHI, Sept 24: The issue of visit facilitation to Pakistani businessmen dominated the discussion at a meeting between Michael L. McGee, Commercial Counsellor of the US Commercial Service, and members of the FPCCI held here on Friday.

The businessmen informed the commercial counsellor that the unfounded scare of insecurity and bad law and order situation in Pakistan raised by the American media, which was restricting visit by American businessmen to Pakistan, needed to be removed urgently.

Mr McGee promised to take up the issue with the US ambassador and higher authorities. He feels that the continuation of this propaganda will have adverse impact on trade and economic relations between the two countries. He said various changes had taken place in this regard since the September 11 incident.

He was informed that the travel advisory being issued to the American businessmen was discouraging them from visiting Pakistan, although the situation in Pakistan was almost safe and secure and normal conditions prevailed, says an FPCCI press release.

FPCCI President Riaz Ahmed Tata also drew attention of the commercial counsellor to the ending of textile quota by 2005 and feared that Pakistan would not be able to maintain the present level of its exports to the US if the market access is denied to it through discriminatory custom duties on imports.

Mr Tata said Pakistan and the US had been enjoying very good and amicable political relations. He said the US was the biggest exporting country of Pakistan with which total trade volume stood at $3.94 billion in 2003-04.

Pakistan has been enjoying significant trade surplus with the US since 1999 - $1.476 billion in 1999-2000; $1.680 billion in 2000-01; $1.569 billion in 2001-02; and $1.881 billion in 2002-03. However, the trade balance reduced to $1.62 billion in 2003-04.

The FPCCI chief said poverty and unemployment levels were high in Pakistan, which only the businessmen could cope through establishing more industries and exporting more to the outside world. He called for more interaction between Pakistani and American businessmen to exploit the vast potential for investment and economic cooperation between the two countries.

Mr McGee said the recent visit of Ex-Imp Bank to Islamabad and plan to organize the visit of a 25-member Pakistani delegation to Singapore in November for American machinery exhibition would promote economic cooperation between the two countries.

FPCCI vice-presidents Arshad Alam and Haroon Rashid and former FPCCI president Tariq Sayeed emphasised that the negative attitude of the US press, negative travel advisory issued to American businessmen and the propagation of security problems in Pakistan needed to be countered seriously by the US authorities so that Pakistan-US economic relations were not affected.