KARACHI, April 14: Minister of State and Export Promotion Bureau Chairman Tariq Ikram sees an export potential of one billion dollars a year for Pakistan in four South American countries —- Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile — where he is leading a 28-member business delegation next week. His visit to the four South American countries is part of the geographical diversification strategy being pursued since 2000 when he took over as the EPB chairman.

Pakistan’s exports in these countries, he pointed out, were $120 million with Mexico absorbing goods worth $50 million followed by $40 million in Chile, $22 million in Argentina and only $5 million in Brazil.

Addressing a press conference at the committee room of the EPB here on Thursday, Mr Ikram discloses that an envoy conference is being held on Sunday and Monday at Brazilian capital Sau Paulo in which Pakistan’s diplomats from the US and South American countries will attend with 28 businessmen to chalk out a line of action.

He recalled that President Pervez Musharraf visited South America as the first Pakistani head of the state and expressed the desire to get access to three countries regional trade alliance, Nafta, and also to MERCUSOR, an alliance of eight or nine South American countries.

“President Musharraf’s desire was well responded,” Tariq Ikram said, but hastily pointed out that it took pretty long time -— five to 10 years in certain cases -— to see the favourable result.

“We carried out a detailed analysis of the markets of the four countries,” he says, informing reporters that Pakistan’s export opportunities exist in a large variety of traditional and non-traditional items such as textile garments, leather and leather garments, rice, surgical instruments, soccer ball and sport goods, engineering products, pharmaceutical products, telecommunication parts, aircraft parts and C and G kits.

“In our analysis we found that there is no joint business council or joint economic commission with any of the South American countries,” the EPB chairman said while hinting at the possibility of concluding one or two such agreements.

“We want to have a structured relationship with trade associations and other organisations,” he pointed out while stressing that in the export business it was not just one or two meetings, booking export order and then forget.

Responding to a question, Mr Ikram agreed that freight will be higher in trade with South America, but “freight is a small factor when it comes to overall trade,” he remarks while pointing out that China maintains trade relations with Europe which is far away.