Belarus Ambassador to Pakistan Andrei Ermolovich on Wednesday said Belarus and Pakistan agricultural and academia ties will be further strengthened to get benefit from each other experiences.

Belarus Ambassador to Pakistan Andrei Ermolovich on Wednesday said Belarus and Pakistan agricultural and academia ties will be further strengthened to get benefit from each other experiences. He addressed a meeting of University of Agriculture Faisalabad deans and directors at Syndicate Room that was presided over by UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan. Embassy Counselor Vladimir Papsuev also attended the meeting. The Ambassador said that Pakistan and Belarus will hold agriculture forum next month in which experts from both countries will participate in Islamabad and will discuss areas of mutual concern. He added that Belarus was producing the advanced agriculture machineries to uplift agriculture production. He further added that Faisalabad is the hub of agricultural institutions for which they would develop the collaboration to address the issues of agriculture sector. He added that strong academia and research linkages between the both countries are helping further cemented ties. He cited that they have inked 20 memorandum of understanding MoUs between academic institutions of Belarus and Pakistan. He said that Belarus had about 10 million population as they had developed a strong farm machineries industries, livestock sector and information technology. He said that they had established tractor manufacturing plant in Karachi whereas they are planning to expand this program to other cities. He told the meeting that they are producing thousands of I.T experts every year. He said that transit route between the Europe and Asia gave a trade line worth billions of rupees. UAF Vice Chancellor Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan sought the Belarusian cooperation in strengthening farm machinery sector in Pakistan and strengthening livestock, veterinary and agriculture sector. He further added that Pakistan was receiving modern tractors from Belarus and stressed upon the need to develop linkages in other farm machineries as well. He said that UAF will ink MOU with Belarus Agriculture institutions to open up new research in agriculture sector. He also suggested establishing agro industrial park in collaboration with Belarus at the UAF. He said that UAF had already inked MOUs with a number of international universities. He said that a Korean innovation park was being established at the UAF. He said that the University was housing USAID funded US Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Agriculture and Food Security. He said that new inventions in agriculture must be reached at society and generating new technologies are priority for us.