ANKARA, June 1: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday invited Turkish entrepreneurs to invest in Pakistan because it provides a unique opportunity to investors through its strategic location, growing economy and open-door investment policy. “We feel that timing, economic environment and open-door investment policy provide you with unique opportunity to focus on Pakistan,” he told a select gathering of Turkish businessmen.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdagon also attended the lunch hosted in the honour of Mr Aziz by the Turkish Union of Chambers and Stock Exchanges.

Underlining Pakistan’s strategic location, he said the country provided link between South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia and the Middle East. Pakistan was also seeking a full dialogue partner status with ASEAN and had interest in joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), he added.

The prime minister highlighted the importance of Gwadar port project saying that it offered vast opportunities for investment and would enable Pakistan to be a hub of economic activities with multiple corridors for oil, gas, trade, investment, transportation and tourism.

Mr Aziz stressed the need to enhance trade between the two countries to $1 billion. “Let this be high on the agenda of the Pakistan-Turkey Joint Economic Commission when it meets in Islamabad later this month,” he added.

The prime minister hoped early the enactment of the Preferential Trade Agreement signed during President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Turkey in January last year to boost trade.

He said the two countries had agreed to expedite talks on tariff concessions that would increase Pakistan’s textile export to Turkey and would enhance unhindered Turkish exports to Pakistan.

He said that economies of Pakistan and Turkey were largely complementary as was evident in fields such as communications, construction, energy, agri-business, food processing and environment.—APP