Water and Power Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif in a meeting with Kyrgyzstan Parliament Speaker Chynybai A Tursunbekov has stressed upon the need for enhancing economical air and rail routes to promote trade and cooperation between the two countries.
The minister stated that projects such as Central Asia-South Asia (Casa) 1,000 power supply scheme, would play a major role in enhancing socio-economic ties between the two countries.
He added that electricity export from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Pakistan under Casa 1,000 is likely to provide 1,300 megawatts of electricity to Pakistan.
Talking about extending trade cooperation between the two countries, the Kyrgyzstan Parliament Speaker said that, “we will seek help from Pakistan in managing the GSP Plus status, awarded (by the European Union) to Kyrgyzstan.”
Earlier, Pakistan had agreed to extend cooperation to provide relevant experience and technical assistance to Kyrgyzstan to help it to make inroads into the EU market under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus – a mechanism under which duties are eliminated or drastically reduced.
According to EU statistics, Pakistan’s exports amounted to 6b euros in 2015, which was 37% more than the imports from the trade bloc.
After the grant of GSP Plus status to Pakistan in January 2014, Pakistan’s exports to the European market grew by 21.5% in 2014 and 33.7% in 2015 compared to 2013.
