KARACHI, May 13: The Russian businessmen are targeting Pakistan for their future relationship and are despatching in quick succession one trade delegation after the other to explore trade as well as strategic economic relationship.

Hardly a month ago about a dozen Russian businessmen visited Pakistan to attend textiles and textile machinery exhibition at the Expo centre, and now another delegation representing oil, gas and electric power sectors is due here to participate in the oil-gas and energy exhibition from May 19.

“Business with Russia is strategic and not optional,” Mohammad Waseem Vohra, President of Emerging Trade Partners Forum and who deals in oil and textile business said. Vohra has received an offer from a Russian company for setting up a tractor manufacturing plant in Pakistan. “I am studying this proposal in context of Pakistan’s market demand,” he said.

“Entry in Russian market facilitates access to the East European countries and even farther,” he said.

Russia is a successor to Soviet Union which has a deep imprint on Pakistan’s economy. A beginning in oil exploration in Pakistan during early decade of sixties began with Soviet assistance when the Oil and Gas Development Corporation was set up after the then federal minister of natural resources late Z.A. Bhutto visited Moscow. Ironically, the OGDCL shares were at the centre of multi-billion rupees scam in the March crash of Karachi Stock Exchange. Pakistan Steel is another landmark project in Pakistan’s economic development and is now on the hit list of the Privatisation Commission.

With a population of about 150 million, almost same as that of Pakistan, but that is dispersed in an unusually large area that is located in both Europe and Asia and is hardly 50 km away from the US.

The two-way volume of trade is hardly $150 million. Pakistan’s main export comprise leather and leather manufacture, yarn and fabrics, footwear, sport goods, rice, pharmaceutical products and surgical instruments.

Russia supplies organic and inorganic chemicals, iron and steel, power generating machinery and a host of other items.