ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industries (PAJCCI) has been playing a vital role in enhancing bilateral trade relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, President of the Chamber, Mohammad Zubair Motiwala said. If trade is given chance, it has the potential to bring peace and prosperity in the region, he said while speaking at a function here adding “trade and politics should be segregated as these cannot go together.”

He said that the purpose of PAJCCI was to promote peace and prosperity between these two neighbouring countries.

He said that a business Perception Survey was conducted in both countries recently that has identified several areas of cooperation besides identifying week areas which if improved could help boost trade.

He said that it was matter of satisfaction that formal bilateral trade between the two countries has been witnessing positive trends and has gone up to $ 2.508 billion in 2010-11, with trade balance visibly in Pakistan’s favour.

Motiwala, who is also Chairman Sindh Board of Investment said that PAJCCI faced many challenges, however, the forum was working on future strategy to overcome these challenges.

He said that Turkey had shown keenness to engage itself with PAJCCI in a tri-lateral arrangement while Tajikistan was also interested in the similar arrangement.

He said that there were tremendous investment opportunities available for the investors of both the countries as Afghan investors could invest in various sectors of economy of Pakistan with special focus on energy sector.

On the other hand, there is a great opportunity for Pakistani businessmen to export cement, textile, food items, oil, furniture, construction material, vegetables, fruit pulp, rice, wheat, engineering goods and many other items to Afghanistan.