KARACHI: The Sindh government on Monday entered into a cooperation agreement with St. Petersburg, the second-largest city in Russia, which aims to promote partnerships in trade, business, education, science and technology, respectively.

Provincial Minister for Planning and Development Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani and Governor St. Petersburg Georgie Sergeevich signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), a press release said.

The signing ceremony was attended by senior officials of the Russian Fede­ration along with Chairman Sindh Planning and Deve­lopment Board, Muhammad Waseem; Chairperson Sindh Board of Investment (SBI), Naheed Memon; and Principal Secretary to the Sindh Chief Minister, Sohail Rajput.

The implementation of MoU will facilitate exchanges between the regions in business, culture, art, tourism, and technology, bringing the two countries closer, the press release added.

Prior to the formal signing of the MoU, the Sindh government officials met with the president of St Petersburg Chamber of Commerce, and discussed cooperation in many sectors.

Chairperson SBI stressed that collaboration in textiles, light industry, medical industry power machines and energy sector would deliver fantastic results.

The Russian counterparts agreed that there was need to promote bilateral cooperation.

On the occasion, the establishment of Pakistan Steel and other similar projects aimed at industrialisation in the country were noted to be strong pillars of relationship developed some 40 years ago.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2017