A Pakistani delegation of 11 leading tannery and leather enterprises is visiting HCM City to seek business opportunities and enhance trade relations between the two countries.

Speaking at the Vietnam - Pakistan business meeting held on February 2 in HCM City , Ambassador Shahid MG Kiani said Pakistan is famous for leather shoes with high quality and reasonable price, and the Pakistan businesses are interested in expanding trade in Vietnam .

The Pakistan businesses displayed their products at the meeting.

After visiting two Vietnamese leather shoe companies, the Pakistan delegation said they are confident that Pakistani leather would satisfy the Vietnamese enterprises’ demands.

Nguyen The Hung, deputy general director of the HCM City branch of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that since Pakistan and Vietnam set up diplomatic relations in 1972, they had deepened bilateral cooperation in commerce and investment areas.

Two countries’ bilateral turnover has seen a sharp increase in recent years, reaching 10 million USD in 2000 and amounting to 150 million USD in 2008.

Vietnam exports to Pakistan in 2008 equalled 95 million USD, mainly in tea, pepper, cotton, rubber and steel. Vietnam imported textile, leather shoe, medicine and food from Pakistan .

Hung said Vietnam is a potential tannery and leather market with an annual growth rate of 16 percent.

Export turnover of the Vietnamese leather shoe industry was 4 billion USD in 2007 and 4.5 billion USD in 2008. However, Vietnamese tannery factories met only 20 percent of the industry demands, causing a heavy reliance on imported leather.

Hung added the HCM City authorities would create many preferential policies to boost the economic cooperation of Pakistan businesses in the city.

The meeting was held by the Pakistan Embassy in collaboration with Pakistan Tannery Association and the VCCI’s HCM City branch./.