British Businesses Encouraged to Invest in Pakistan

British businesses have been encouraged to invest in Pakistan as part of an ongoing program of events run by the UK government to highlight new opportunities. The webinar titled ‘Doing Business in Pakistan’ was held on April 29, 2021. It brought together three exceptional panelists who have welcomed the support offered by the UK’s Department for International Trade. Ann Francke, Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute, Ash Ramzan, Principal Consultant at Woodley BioReg Limited, and Jag Grewal, Commercial Director at Omega Diagnostic, all wanted to share their experiences and inspire those who are looking for their next challenge. Olivia Campbell, the UK’s Deputy Director for Trade in Pakistan and Chair of the Panel, said, “Pakistan is an exciting market that provides lots of potential for the UK. We have almost 200 UK firms doing business in Pakistan, and this number is growing every year.” “By sharing the experience of UK businesses that have had success in this market, we want to encourage more British firms to consider Pakistan as their partner of choice,” Campbell added. The webinar ended with a Q&A session discussing the challenges one faces to enter the Pakistani market and all the DIT support available to counter these. The webinar was targeted at UK businesses. The event highlighted opportunities for trade and investment in Pakistan for British firms, provided guidance, and discussed services that DIT can provide. Around 197 British firms are operating and investing in Pakistan, including notable names like Mott MacDonald in infrastructure development, Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser in consumer goods, Standard Chartered (SCB), and United Bank Limited (UBL) in banking, GlaxoSmithKline in pharmaceuticals, and Shell in oil and gas. UK Export Finance has increased its available support for exports to Pakistan to £1.5 billion. This will give additional capacity to help UK exporters win, fulfill, and get paid for export contracts, and to help Pakistan’s buyers access to finance to source high-quality UK goods and services.