LAHORE Jan 21 (DNA) : Founder Chairman Pak-US Business Council and veteran trade  leader Iftikhar Ali Malik Thursday congratulated Democrat Joe Biden on becoming 46th president of the United States.

He expressed these views while talking to media here today.He also further extended greetings to Kamala Harris first ever  woman Vice President  and hoped new leadership will focus on bringing durable peace worldwide especially in South Asia besides restoring the confidence of entire Muslim Ummah in addition to fully ensuring equal rights to all irrespective of  color, creed, religion and caste.

He further hoped that under new era,Pakistan will be provided free market access to United States at zero duty in the wake of war on terror in the region and the US private sector will further enter into joint ventures in economic sphere.

Iftikhar Ali Malik said what Pakistan needs is to opt the model of joint ventures on the pattern of Egypt and some African countries to enhance trade ties with biggest economies like the US.

He said Pakistan had been keen to explore potential trade concessions as it could import more US cotton in return for preferential US market access for its apparel export. A preferential Trade Agreement (FTA) could be a long goal because of complexity involved in the process, he further said and added that the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement ( TIFA) provided an institutional mechanism to carry forward those discussions and come up with new ideas.

Iftikhar Ali Malik was of the considered view that the US  hould remove the bottlenecks in bilateral investment treaty and efforts should now be made to better FTA and it is now imperative that the new US leadership should offer same package and incentives which it offers to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in textile exports, such as duty concessions and market access.

“There must be an incentive package for Pakistan for being a front-line state in combating terrorism with the US. He said that Pakistan is time tested friend and suffered colossal irreparable  economic losses running in billions of dollars in war on terrorism in the region.

He further said visa restrictions should be eased for the Pakistani businessmen and exporters and joint efforts are needed to further cement the existing economic ties between Pakistan and US private sector. He said Pakistan and US are enjoying amicable relationship and coalition partners against war on terror.
He said it’s world record that Pakistan has been hosting 2.7 million Afghan refugees for the last 40 years besides laying down the highest number human lives again war on terror.