High Commissioner of Pakistan to Canada Muhammad Saleem, delivered keynote address at the historic Albany Club Toronto, engaging a distinguished audience of Canadian legislators, business executives and policy influencers. The event served as very pertinent platform to share the low lying fruits and immense opportunities for bilateral economic cooperation with Canada's political and business communities.
The High Commissioner underscored significant untapped potential for expanding Pakistan–Canada trade and investment ties. He shed light on Pakistan’s competitive, promising and strategic investment sectors particularly mining and minerals; IT-enabled services; clean energy; and infrastructure sectors. Emphasizing Pakistan’s various economic diplomacy initiatives, he highlighted Pakistan’s strategic location as a bridge to connect Central Asia, South Asia, the Gulf States and the wider world across Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. He drew attention to the growing prospects for engagement of Canadian enterprises across multiple sectors in Pakistan under the Canadian Government’s economic diversification drive.
The High Commissioner also shared geopolitical insights, stressing that sustainable peace in South Asia is essential for long-term regional prosperity. He reiterated Pakistan’s principled position on the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India. Referring to Canada’s first ever UN peacekeeping mission across the disputed Kashmir region in 1949, he emphasized the need for peaceful resolution of Kashmir dispute through implementation of the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions which call for holding free and fair plebiscite to enable the people in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir decide whether they would join Pakistan or India.
Hon. Zee Hamid, MPP and Assoc. Solicitor General, Government of Ontario, as well as Hon. former MP Bryon Wilfert, Chair of the Canada-Pakistan Business Council, also addressed the event participants.
