Pakistan has a lot of potential: British High Commissioner Jane Marriott
Abida Shaheen
Karachi: British High Commissioner to Pakistan Jane Marriott this week said that Pakistan had a lot of potential.
During an interview, she spoke about bilateral ties between the UK and Pakistan, making information accessible to potential Pakistani students, and her thoughts on the Pakistani mangoes.
“We (the UK) continue to work more broadly on things like counter-IED training, counter-explosive training, medical training etc (plus) cooperation and information sharing with your security authorities because we’re very aware that Pakistan is on the front-line of many of the bad things (that can happen),” she said.
The British High Commissioner said that the UK has “tripled trade in the last three years between Pakistan and the UK. Primarily it’s textiles from Pakistan to the UK and metals from the UK to Pakistan, which is important, but it doesn’t feel very 21st century. So, what we have started doing is looking at how we can work on your tech, startups, services and really looking at some of those investment opportunities.”
The High Commissioner mentioned that “there is so much potential here and there are so many UK companies that want to come in but they are looking at some of the economic uncertainty here at the moment and waiting for it to be a little bit more stable.”
When Shah asked her about her view on the current security situation in this region and what she thought the role the UK could play, the British High Commissioner said that Pakistan has two “huge neighbours and a whole host of other challenges and opportunities…the border with Afghanistan continues to be a source of trade opportunity but also potential insecurity.”
She said tens of thousands of Pakistani students are studying in the UK at any given moment. “I think sometimes we can be a bit more clear on exactly what it is you have to do. There’s a lot of forms; there’s a lot of things that you need to do…and it’s not always immediately obvious what to follow so we are planning some communications out what we can do to make that more accessible,” the envoy added.
She mentioned that the next round of Chevening scholarship was opening soon: “a few days ago I waved off 69 scholars to the UK with Masters and PhD scholarships fully paid for; these are Commonwealth and Chevening scholarships. The next window for applications opens about the 12th of September for about six weeks and we’re looking for bright students who’ve already got an under-grad, some experience … and we’re really looking at things like climate change, life sciences — things Pakistan and the UK can work on together.”
