Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s President Dr Arif Alvi, on Friday stressed the need for accelerated cooperation and engagements with Norway in diverse sectors, including green energy, trade, business, and investment.
Talking to Pakistan’s Ambassador-designate to Norway, Sadia Altaf Qazi, President Alvi called for bilateral cooperation in the fields of defence, education, skill development, and exports of Pakistan’s cost-effective but highly prized vegetables and fruits.
President Alvi said that there was a need to enhance bilateral trade from its existing volume of US$ 128.404 million. He said the volume of trade did not represent the true potential by promoting exports of non-traditional and traditional services and products to Norway’s rich and affluent market.
Cooperation between Pakistan and Norway
The president advised the ambassador-designate to proactively interact and engage with Pakistani expatriates, provide them proactive counsellor services, and, through their platforms, promote not only bilateral investment and trade but also take meaningful measures for increasing people-to-people contacts and promotion of Pakistan’s rich, cultural, diverse, and social values and tourism opportunities.
President Alvi advised the ambassador to explore meaningful opportunities and venues for bilateral cooperation in the field of scientific, academic, development, and industrial research and collaboration between the counterpart institutes and universities of the two countries.
The president said efforts should also be made to include Pakistan in the list of prioritized countries of Norway for enhancing education cooperation under its Panorama Strategy 2021-2027.
