Islamabad- Tazeen Akhtar -11 March 2020; Ambassador of Romania Mr Nicolae Goia has said that his country has very good relations with Pakistan and India. Romania favors dialogue on dispute of Jammu Kashmir between the both countries. Pakistani students are welcome to Romania. Pakistan Romania have bilateral cooperation in different sectors including education, culture, trade,defence and defence production and there is huge potential of enhancing it. Pakistan is one of the most important countries for Romania.Regarding Feb 2019 highly escalated situation between the two rivals, Ambassador praised the Pakistani and Indian response that what he said was very good decision on both sides, paving the way for de-escalation between the two countries that are nuclear especially.
The ambassador was addressing to the participants of a seminar on bilateral relations arranged by Pak Romania Friendship Association at Preston University in Islamabad on 10 March 2020. Members of the association, students and faculty attended the seminar and asked questions to the ambassador that he replied to their information.
Vice Chancellor Mr Abdul Basit commenced the seminar with his welcoming remarks for the ambassador and Romanian people . Dr Allah Wadhayo Baloch , Registrar Preston University was also present.
Mr Ahsan Shah introduced the PRFA to the students and shared the details of activities of the association. He disclosed that negotiations on twin city status for Islamabad and Bucharest are going on with Mayor of Islamabad who is agreed in principle to sign the MoU. He also shared that a Pakistani business man Mr Awais is interested to set up Pak Romania Schools system in big cities of Pakistan. Mr Awais was also present at the occasion.
Ambassador Nicolae Goia in his keynote address covered almost all the aspects of bilateral relations. Ambassador said that Romania is EU and NATO member. We recently completed our presidency of EU that was a wonderful experience. We supported Pakistan for GSP that helped promote its exports to European countries. Pakistani businessman community still has a vast opportunity to enhance the level of the exports by taking maximum benefit of GSP facility.
” Pakistan is very beautiful country. It is like our second home after Romania. Unfortunately Pakistan had image problem in the west. Certainly the image portrayed about Pakistan was wrong and that we felt in true sense when we put our foot on this land. I remember when I received call from MOFA regarding my posting to Islamabad. I asked my wife for her opinion and she said YES we will go to Islamabad. And when we reached here , we saw everything different here. The country, its people were all very friendly.” Ambassador recalled.
Mr. Nicolae Goia said that Pakistan is land of great attraction for tourism. Romania is ready to offer cooperation in tourism sector. Romania has recently improved its travel advisory for Pakistan. We consider Pakistan safe for our tourists and travelers.
Ambassador invited the universities of Pakistan to work with Romanian educational institutions. He said that we welcome Pakistani students for higher/ medical studies in Romania and for that better is to work directly with each other. The embassy is here to extend all possible support and guidance.
Mr Nicolae Goia appreciating the potential of Pakistani people working abroad said that many Pakistanis are serving in my country in different fields. He said that their contribution there is wonderful and satisfactory.
Both countries are cooperating in defence and defence production sectors. The high officials of defence from both countries have visited each other. Romanian Navy takes part in exercises of Pak Navy regularly.
On 15 Feb 2020 -Commissioning Ceremony of state of the art 2300 Tons Corvette PNS YARMOOK was held at Constanta Port, Romania. Vice Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Muhammad Fayyaz Gilani graced the occasion as Chief Guest.
Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi visited Romania in Nov 2019. During visit, the Naval Chief called on Romanian Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of the Romanian Naval Forces and also visited DAMEN Shipyards at Galati.
Chief of Romanian Naval Forces Vice Admiral Alexandru Mirsu visited Pakistan during AMAN-19 exercise of Pakistan Navy in Karachi in Feb 2019.
The President of Pakistan, last week, directed the Ambassador-designate to Romania Dr Zafar Iqbal to make efforts to further enhance and expand bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and Romania in various areas of mutual interests.He asked Dr. Zafar Iqbal to work for the promotion of trade relations, particularly establishing linkages between the Chambers of Commerce of the two countries.
Diplomatic relations were established in 1964, since then bonds have gone a long way for bringing closer both the nations. Romania supported Pakistan in its membership of the Security Council in 2011. The economic dimension of relationship is far less satisfactory compared to the political dimension, and needs to be worked upon. In the cultural field, both countries share good relations. Currently, close to 200 Pakistani students are pursuing their studies in Romania and are being trained as engineers, doctors, IT experts, and businessmen.
Ambassador Nicolae Goia calls on high officials and ministers regularly to discuss further increasing the cooperation. Pakistan and Romania can benefit from each other’s experiences in IT and Telecom sector. Pak-Romania Parliamentary Friendship Group has been constituted to promote parliamentary relations between the two countries. In short, Pakistan and Romania have enormous potential to promote economic and socio-economic cooperation and sustainable partnership.
