Pakistan and Canada on Saturday reaffirmed the importance of expanding cooperation in trade and investment during the sixth round of Bilateral Political Consultations held in Islamabad.
According to the Foreign Office (FO), the Pakistani delegation was led by UN Special Secretary Ambassador Nabeel Munir and the Director General (Americas), while Canada was represented by Ambassador Weldon Epp, Assistant Deputy Minister (Indo-Pacific) at Global Affairs Canada, along with Canadian High Commissioner Tarik Ali Khan.
In a press release, the FO said both sides expressed satisfaction with the steady progress in bilateral relations, highlighting recent “substantive interactions” between Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand.
The two sides noted that these high-level engagements had provided strategic direction and renewed momentum to the partnership, and reaffirmed their shared commitment to further strengthening ties.
Acknowledging the considerable untapped potential in the relationship, Pakistan and Canada agreed on the need to improve the implementation of existing agreements and to explore new areas of cooperation. In this context, they stressed the importance of enhancing trade and economic collaboration, including stronger support for business communities, facilitation of trade delegations and closer institutional linkages.
The consultations also identified a broad range of priority sectors for future engagement, including trade and investment, agriculture and agri-tech, mining and minerals, energy, climate change, artificial intelligence and information and communications technology, skilled workforce development, education and research, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges.
Both sides underscored the pivotal role of investment in achieving sustainable and mutually beneficial growth, and agreed to encourage greater private-sector participation to tap emerging opportunities.
The discussions also covered the evolving regional and global landscape, with the two countries exchanging views on key multilateral issues and agreeing to maintain regular consultations. They expressed confidence that continued engagement would yield further progress in the bilateral partnership.
In November, Pakistan and Canada had issued a joint statement announcing an agreement to facilitate the export of Canadian canola to Pakistan. Canada has been seeking to diversify export markets for the crop after China imposed preliminary anti-dumping duties on Canadian canola imports in August, following Canada’s decision last year to levy a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicle imports.