Thai Airways to resume flight operations to Pakistan

LAHORE: Ambassador of Thailand Chakkrid Krachaiwong has said that the Thai Airways would soon resume flight operations for Lahore and Islamabad, which was suspended due to the Covid-19.

Speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), he expressed the hope that the volume of bilateral trade would increase with the normalisation of the situation after the pandemic.

LCCI president Mian Nauman Kabir, senior vice president Rehman Aziz Chan and vice president Haris Ateeq also spoke on the occasion.

The ambassador said Thai companies were keen to invest in Pakistan, adding that both countries were dynamic consumer markets that provided unlimited scope for the businessmen.

Kabir stressed the need for providing Pakistani products access to the Thai market, adding that both the countries enjoyed cordial relations based on mutual trust.

He said the volume of bilateral trade was around $1 billion in 2020, adding that there was a need to bridge the trade deficit and increase the volume of bilateral trade by exploring new avenues of economic cooperation.

The LCCI president said Pakistan’s exports to Thailand were frozen fish, textiles, articles, beverages and cotton.

“We are importing vehicles, articles of plastics, staple fibres, organic chemicals and machinery parts from Thailand,” he said.

“Thailand’s look west and Pakistan’s vision of East Asia policies complement each other. [The] governments and the private sector of both countries should take necessary steps to turn this vision into reality,” he said.

“We need to benefit from the Thai expertise in [the] development of [the] tourism sector,” he said.

Chan and Ateeq said that Pakistan has recently liberalised policy framework to encourage manufacturing of mobile phone devices and electric vehicles.

These hi-tech sectors offer a great potential of joint ventures between the private sectors of both countries, they said.