Newsletter No. 482
News-Analysis
January 13, 2007

 

MORE TALK ABOUT EXPANDING JAPAN-PAKISTAN TRADE

The Pakistani press is reporting that a meeting of the “Pak-Japan Joint Public and Private Dialogue” will be held in Karachi on the 24th. According to the Daily Times, the purpose of these talks is “to finalize a road map for expansion in the trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.”

The Japanese delegation is expected to be led by Seiichi Nagatsuka, a senior METI official.

Japan-Pakistan trade has been weaker than both parties would like. In particular, Pakistani exports to Japan have fallen sharply in recent years. These talks aim to look at the entire field of Japan-Pakistan trade and to identify where the problems lie, and then discover what kinds of administrative and financial policies might be employed to overcome these problems and bottlenecks.

Some of the specific items up for discussion are a new bilateral tax treaty, the possibility and requirements of export insurance for Japanese companies, measures against fraud and smuggling, human resources development in Pakistan, quality control issues, and visa matters.

Related to this upcoming event was a lecture held yesterday by the Consul-General of Karachi, Shoichi Nakano, at the Area Study Centre, Far East and Southeast Asia, University of Sindh, Jamshoro (Hyderabad). The lecture was titled “Pakistan-Japan Relations,” and seemed to be very well informed.

Nakano noted the following aspects of the history of the relationship: Karachi was the very first place where Japanese companies re-established their outlets after World War II, with Pakistani cotton and yarn feeding the Japanese textile industry as they began to rebuild from the ashes of the war.

In 1954, a Pakistani prime minister visited Japan for the first time. The same year saw the first provision of Japanese ODA to Pakistan. Yen loans began in 1961. The only major bump in Japan-Pakistan came from 1998 to 2001 as a result of Pakistan’s nuclear test. According to Nakano, the decision to re-open technical assistance to Islamabad in November 2001 was in consequence of “remarkable efforts by Pakistan to curb terrorism.”

At the end of his talk, Consul-General Nakano handed over about US$4,000 in books to the International Relations Department of the University of Sindh.

TOY DIPLOMACY

On the 9th, the very same Consul-General Shoichi Nakano was in Karachi presiding over an exhibition called “Japanese Toys: Traditional and Contemporary.” The exhibition was held at the V. M. Art Gallery, and was sponsored by the Pak-Japan Cultural Centre, Karachi, in collaboration with the Pak-Japan Association, Sindh, and the Rangoonwala Community Centre, Karachi.

The Pakistani guests seem to have been delighted and amused at the rather broad exhibition of traditional Japanese toys dating back to the Edo Period. Explained Nakano: “Even though toys are made primarily for children, they actually portray a lot about prevalent norms and customs… The purpose of this exhibition is to portray similarities in the Pakistani and Japanese cultures. Through this, we hope to build closer ties between the two countries, and strengthen valuable relationships.”