FPCCI Celebrates Malawi’s Independence Day Welcomes Appointment of Honorary Consul General Atif Ikram Sheikh

Karachi: Mr. Atif Ikram Sheikh, President FPCCI, has welcomed the appointment of Mr. Abdullah Zaki as the honorary consul general of the Republic of Malawi on behalf of the entire business, industry and trade community of Pakistan. He emphasized that Mr. Abdullah Zaki is from within the business community; and, FPCCI is confident that he will be able to open the doors of Malawi for Pakistani exporters.

Mr. Atif Ikram Sheikh highlighted that Southeast African country of Malawi has a population of 25 million people; but, our exports to them is only $9 million per year. This makes it clear that we have a substantive potential to increase our exports.

Mr. Abdullah Zaki, honorary Consul General of Malawi in Pakistan, explained that there is an enormous potential for Pakistani exporters in Malawi in diverse sectors – textiles, rice, pharmaceuticals, surgical instruments, sports goods, construction materials, motorcycles, etc. Malawi is also a great destination for Pakistani industrialists as labor is cheap and taxation is low, he added.

Mr. Saquib Fayyaz Magoon, SVP FPCCI, proposed that the business community of Pakistan should be given visas swiftly and facilitated to explore the Malawian market. He further elaborated that Pakistan should also explore people-to-people and cultural relations with Malawi as some of the Pakistani businessmen have established significant footprint in Malawi and Muslims are in big numbers in Malawi as well.

Mr. Aman Parachi, VP FPCCI, stressed that Malawi should enable the enhancement of volume of the tea imports from Malawi to Pakistan. It is a win-win scenario as Pakistan is one of the top 5 importers of tea in the world as it imports around $600 million of tea every year and Pakistan can import price-competitive tea from Malawi.

Brig Iftikhar Opel, SI (M), Retd.
Secretary General