The business start-up

The region’s most dynamic yet neglected land, Pakistan, has started to pave its way to the world economy by rendering its first major and highly successful business delegation on the soil of world’s 4th biggest economy, Germany. Over 300 delegates comprising of Businessmen, Industrialists, Diplomats, IT and Corporate Law experts from both Pakistan and Germany sat together on October 30, 2013 in Berlin to ponder as to how the economic and trade relations between the two countries could be deepened and further expanded for the benefit of the people of both the countries. The aim is high and objective is clear as to raise the level of trade between Germany and Pakistan from about euro 2 billion per annum to above euro 5 billion in the next 5 years.

The run-up to the day of event on 30th October 2013 in Berlin included top-level business meetings of Shahbaz Sharif with companies’ influential in Energy sector. Currently Pakistan faces a challenge of about 6000 MW shortage in power which will soon climb up to 10,000 MW. Shahbaz Sharif also made a field trip to Feldheim, Brandenburg, an energy complex operated by Energiequelle, where he took a visit to biomass, biogas, solar and wind park. This loophole possesses a major business potential for German energy sector firms. Shahbaz Sharif took a keen interest in companies dealing with solar, biogas and waste-to-energy companies since these are subject to massive availability of Sun light, cow dung and waste in Pakistan. Shahbaz Sharif also proposed to the German government for block allocation of funds to German companies willing to invest in Pakistan with a credit line to reimburse funds in the pool. The German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle also pressed the German companies to invest in the versatile set of market segments offered by Pakistan. He said in his speech, ‘The German business community should carefully consider the potential and the opportunities that are offered by the Pakistani market, particularly against the background of several positive developments in the recent months’. The German Minister of State for Economic Co-operation and Development Gudrun Kopp also held a meeting with the Chief Minister to discuss propagation of bilateral business developments across the two countries.

The Pakistan Business Day in Berlin was organised in a joint collaboration of the Pakistan German Business Forum and the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The aim of the event was focused on expanding the Pakistan-German trade relations. The conferences were objected towards a focused search for new markets and potential opportunities for businesses on both sides to grip their investments on. The agenda of the event was clear, making Business the policy of development and prosperity, especially needed by the war on terror-affected Pakistan. The participants made it clear in their dialogues at the event that business development is a key to economic growth and economic growth is a key to get rid of the radical extremism that Pakistan faces at large in current times. For German economy, however, Pakistani market has always been interesting with fluctuating investment trends from German business in Pakistan. There are many high-profile German companies already having a stronghold of Pakistan markets and on conclusion of the event about 25 new German companies have shown willingness to visit Pakistan and open up their investment policies to the country. The quickest response being the delegation of experts from ALBA group expected to visit Pakistan soon.

The day itself has been successful, but the real numeric success needs an exclusive follow-up of the event with keeping the B2B meetings at a suave level and practically implementing the theoretically-made investment plans. And for the purpose, German delegation of Businessmen will visit Pakistan in the beginning of 2014, paving way for the elevation of Pakistan German Business Forum, Karachi to the status of Overseas German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. For German companies, Pakistan offers a strong economic growth over the last year and with increasing population and economy, heavy investments are needed to keep pace with the growth potential of the country. On the other hand, Germany as the strongest economy in the EU offers a variety of investing opportunities for businesses like textile, medical, agriculture, jewellery, sports and minerals. There was a strong feel of establishing Pakistan German Chamber of Commerce to provide businesses with a permanent platform to approach for connecting with the business on the other side.

This is a real way forward, making business around the globe. For a country like Pakistan, business is important for its development through improved economy, business being the driver. By this the country will manage to fight problems like unemployment, quality of life, literacy rates, infant mortality, corruption and many other issues which will all sum up to fight against the disease of terrorism. The country has started to realise to use the most important tool to overcome its problem, the Pakistan Business day will help in bringing business, private sectors and enterprises to raise its imports/exports, foreign investments and help model its foreign policy.

This initiative shall also bring about the positive side of the Pakistan on world forums and help build its optimistic image not just to the businesses but to the foreign public as well. The government of Pakistan should review this event in full detail and extract loopholes and identify points where improvements could be made and should address any problems and then send a similar delegation to the other big economies of the world like USA, UK, China and Japan. For a better approach a feedback from the participants should be generated to achieve better scores in the next event. Alongside planning for the next destination, the implementation of achievements from this event shall be made practical, which would increase not just the efficiency but the effectiveness of such events in future and will help boost the country’s lingering economy at large. With all the critics and recommendations aside, appreciation for the organisers to have planned an event of such big scale and actually made it happen, and that too, successfully!

(The writer is a Post-Graduate student of Quantitative Finance at Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, Germany)