Pakistan's Ambassador-designate to Russian Federation (RF) Qazi M Khalilulllah while exchanging views with the business community at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), said that Russia was a huge market for Pakistani products and urged the Pakistani businessmen to step up efforts to explore the Russian market for promoting trade and exports.

Russia is among top 10 economies of the world with annual imports of over $175 billion, but Pakistan's share of trade with Russia was 0.06 percent of its total trade, which was quite negligible.

He said that Pakistani textiles, leather goods, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, plastic and many other products could find good market in Russia. He suggested that Pakistani businessmen should consider setting up a certification agency to improve the quality and standards of their products at par with international requirements, which would help them in boosting exports.

He further said that Russia was a major importer of food products that accounted for 13 percent of its total imports and Pakistan has good opportunity to promote export of its food products to Russia by improving their quality and ensuring compliance of sanitary and phyto sanitary standards.

An annual international food exhibition named 'World Food Moscow' would be held in September 2016 and Pakistani food exporters should participate and explore export potential for Pakistani fruits & vegetables, fish & seafood, meat & poultry and other products.

ICCI President Atif Ikram Sheikh on the occasion said that Russian technology and machinery could also help in modernizing Pakistan's industry and the embassy should play its role to strengthen and share trade-related information with chambers of commerce in Pakistan so that businessmen could take measures to avail potential opportunities for improving trade and exports with Russia.

He want the government cooperation in establishing warehouses in Russia to display Pakistani products, which would help in promoting exports with Russia.