KARACHI, Aug 18: A strong mission of British-Pakistanis will visit Pakistan in October to explore investment and trade opportunities. Although the exact number of non-resident Pakistanis in the team is not known , it will represent 600-700 businessmen of Pakistani origin running small- and medium-sized enterprises in Britain.

Addressing the Small and Medium Enterprises Association (SMEA) at a luncheon meeting here, Hamish St. Clair Daniel, Deputy High Commissioner of the UK, said the delegation would be from a broad spectrum of people who were keen to promote a two-way trade and investment.

The visit will be a follow-up of an investment conference organized by Pakistan in London recently and will be preceded by an earlier UK trade mission in September. The visit will coincide with SME Bank, making efforts to reduce lending rates.

Tariq Baluch, a senior official of the bank, who attended the meeting, told Dawn that his bank had applied to the State Bank for a commercial banking licence. This will help SME Bank raise deposits at market rates at much lower cost than the credit-line given to the institution by the State Bank at five per cent. Lending rates will also come down.

Since the restructuring of the bank that involved the redundancies of staff and sharp reduction in branches, the intermediation cost has come down. Big borrowers under the SME category get loans at 10 per cent and others at 14-15 per cent against 18-20 years some years ago, says Mr Baluch.

In the SMEA meeting, a wide range of issues affecting bilateral relations between the two countries with focus on sensitive issues like travel advisory, issue of visas and discriminatory tax treatment to British contractors were raised.