KARACHI: There will not be significant changes in the overall relationship between the United Kingdom and Pakistan after the recently held parliamentary elections in Britain, said Philip Barton, UK High Commissioner to Pakistan. He articulated his thoughts at a talk he gave at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs on Thursday. He said even though now there was a different government in power in the UK the prime minister and top four senior ministers remain unchanged. “The two governments know each other well. They have a mature relationship allowing genuine partnership and where there are issues in which they differ with each other, they can discuss it without being rankled.”

He spelled out the six areas which he and his team would be focusing on during his tenure in Pakistan: furthering of business relationship between UK and Pakistan, access to EU markets, increasing the tax revenue base, regional relationships, development and security.

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Continued efforts will be made in making both the countries prosperous, said Mr Barton while speaking on commercial relations between Britain and Pakistan. “We are promoting Pakistani companies to the British ones, finding ways of doing business with ease. Retail sector will see a potential increase as more British brands coming into Pakistan. Information technology is another area will there be a potential increase both ways.”

The second area of their focus — access to EU markets, he said the granting of GSP Plus status to Pakistan by EU led to a big boost in trade. “I am told there was an increase of $1bn revenue. We would like Pakistani companies to have the best opportunities in EU markets.” However, he reminded that this came about with certain caveats such as adhering to international conventions on human rights and labour standards. “It is important that Pakistan lives up to those commitments.”

How the Pakistani government collects its taxes is another area of focus. “We have to look into the eye of the British taxpayer and justify to them why we are spending their pounds on Pakistan when Pakistan is not doing enough to collect taxes from its people.” He told the sizeable audience that his government and particularly UK equivalent of the FBR was providing technical assistance to Pakistan on increasing its tax revenue base.

Regional relations are another area in which UK is and will continue to play a role. He said his country was appreciative of the new chapter of relations between the new Afghan government and Pakistan. “There is an important economic and commercial interest linked to both the countries in the form of bilateral trade which is crucial to their well-being.”

Regarding India, he said the UK had a long standing position which is that it would like India Pakistan relations to be better “but at the end of the day they have to decide how they want to take it forward.” The recent back and forth statements emerging from the two were a cause of concern, he added.

They were also making efforts in health and education projects in Pakistan. Coming to security issues he said that they had undertaken quite a few capacity-building projects by training military personnel among other things.

Later speaking to Dawn about cases against Altaf Hussain, the MQM chief and a British citizen, he said the UK government’s position on it was clear, “it is a matter of the police and not the government.”

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2015

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