Lahore March 04 (Online): Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) on Thursday said that the economic diplomacy was one of key component of modern diplomatic practice.
Speaking to delegation of business community, PBF President Mian Usman Zulfiqar said Pakistan envoys to cultivate and broaden mutually beneficial trade and economic partnerships with European and African countries, focusing on key goals of trade promotion, financial inflows, investments, remittances, tourism and technology transfer.
Though economic diplomacy may be a relatively new concept in Pakistan, using economic and diplomatic resources in sync as tools to advance a country’s financial, political and strategic goals has been in practice for a long time.
Some countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada and Mauritius strengthened their economic diplomacy through merging their trade and foreign ministries. Other nations, such as Turkey, created a separate unit in the office of the head of government.
Those countries which preferred to maintain the two traditional ministries of foreign affairs and commerce set up joint bodies to improve coordination between them. Pakistan must to be following this model by setting up an outreach committee.
Whatever the approach, it is crucial that all the stakeholders wholeheartedly accept the initiative of promoting economic diplomacy to gain greater economic leverage.
Unless we have synergy, we will find it very difficult to meet challenges not only arising from the shifting world order, but also of the emergence of new international task forces and organisations.
In the case of Pakistan, an economic diplomacy strategy may be focus on an in-depth partnership framework with China and regional players, a private sector-led model to undertake large commercial transactions, revamping of the ministries of foreign affairs and economic management and a new way of engaging with multilateral and regional financial institutions.
PBF President also urged that the Foreign Office needs to review incentive structures to send its best envoys to countries with a promise to engage on economic terms. Major investment will be required to groom the skills of diplomats specialising in economic diplomacy.
At the institutional level, there are too many cooks dealing with investors; this needs to be urgently streamlined. As several countries have merged the functions of trade ministries with foreign missions where ambassadors have been given clear targets regarding the delivery of commercial deals.
Economic diplomacy requires visible signals of a new approach to reposition Pakistan in a rapidly changing world; he added.
