On Friday, 20 September 2024, Ambassador Dato’ Azhar Mazlan attended the Annual General Meeting of Pakistan Soap Manufacturers Association (PSMA) at the Governor House Lahore. The Honourable Sardar Saleem Haider Khan, the Governor of Punjab graced the occasion as Chief Guest.
In his remarks at the gathering, Ambassador Dato’ Azhar stated that Pakistan was the third largest partner of Malaysia in the region, with total trade between the two countries registering at USD 1.5 billion for 2023. Amb. Dato' Azhar emphasized that Malaysia was keen to explore new investment and trade opportunities with Pakistan. He shared that Malaysia was going to be the Chairman of ASEAN in 2025. He urged Pakistani businessmen to look at ASEAN with a population of 670 million (10 member states of ASEAN) as their next investment destination. The High Commissioner viewed that every industry should keep on innovating and creating new products, so that the product could be supplied to entire population of Pakistan as well as for export to foreign countries.
He mentioned that soap manufacturers could play an important role in fulfilling the corporate social responsibility by spreading the hygiene methods like washing hands with soap among Pakistani population of 240 million people as there were huge numbers of people who were not familiar with hygiene methods.
He informed the audience that Pakistan had been a strategic partner of Malaysia since March 2019 and the forthcoming Official Visit by the Prime Minister of Malaysia to Pakistan in early October 2024 would herald a new chapter in strengthening bilateral relations between the two brotherly countries. He expressed his pleasure while sharing that Malaysia was the largest host of Pakistani diaspora in Southeast Asia having around 200,000 Pakistani diasporas living in Malaysia, earning a living in Malaysia and at the same time, remitting money back to Pakistan. He shared that in Buner, Swat Valley, these exist Pakistani community with close affiliation to Malaysia. They could even speak Malay language, Bahasa Malaysia.
In concluding his remarks, Ambassador Dato’ Azhar congratulated the gathering, and expressed his gratitude to the association for arranging such an eventful gathering of different chambers and associations where they got an opportunity to meet and share their experience and expertise with each other.
