President of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Zubair Tufail on Wednesday left to Ankara to attend the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Chamber of Commerce and Industry Conference.

A ten-member delegation including vice presidents of the Apex chamber is also accompanying the president of FPCCI to participate in the 23rd Executive Committee Meeting of ECO Chamber which will be held on 17th November at Ankara, Turkey.

The event which is being hosted with the cooperation of Union Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Turkey (TOBB) which will be attended by all the federal Chamber of Commerce of the member countries.

ECO CCI is a flagship organization of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) which was established in 1993 and all the National Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are members of ECO CCI.

The Executive Committee meeting will review the existing intra-trade and its expansion under ECO Vision 2025, investment opportunities in the ECO region, ECO Trade Facilitation, Transport, visa facilitation, tourism etc.

The intra-trade of ECO member countries is only US $ 48 billion while the trade volume of this region with the other countries is the US $ 625 billion which is 1.9 percent of the total international world.

Before leaving, the president of the FPCCI said that lack of banking channels and visa restrictions are hampering intra-regional trade.

He said that issues stagnating the growth of inter-regional trade should be resolved while member countries should lift all the trade barriers.