BEIJING: Pakistan is looking forward to exporting textile and agriculture products to China through China International Import Expo (CIIE) scheduled to be held in Shanghai in the first week of next month November, Federal Secretary of Commerce, Younus Dagha Wednesday said.

“We feel that Pakistan has a great potential to export its textiles, agricultural products to China and as we are in this government, we are focusing more on value addition,” he told China Global Television Network (CGTN) in an interview.

“We want to keep increasing our exports and China being the regional economic superpower, we have lots of hopes, for this market to provide access to Pakistani products,” he added.

When asked as the guest of honour country, how was Pakistan preparing to showcase at the mega event, he said, “We are very thankful to Chinese that they have given us a very special and privileged position in this fair, and we’ll try to match up to the expectations and try to build up Pakistan’s image, not only as an exporter of goods but also as a place of great culture.

” About Pakistan’s hopes for participation in the expo and how did it view the Chinese market, he said, the government looked China not only as a great supplier of goods and services to Pakistan but also as a buyer of our services.

Younus Dagha remarked that as the Chinese economy was growing, and the purchasing power of the people was increasing, Pakistani products could find a great market there, adding, “China is a market of one point five billion people.” While commenting on the overall status of bilateral trade between Pakistan and China, he said, “It has been difficult, frankly speaking, in the past we have had great, huge deficit with China, but as we are discussing with our Chinese partners, they are ready to give more market access in concessional tariff regime for Pakistani products and we feel this trade deficit will gradually come down.”