Pakistan and the Maldives Sign 20 MoUs and Set a $200 Million Trade Target for the Next Two Years

ISLAMABAD: The numbers tell the story on their own. Trade between Pakistan and the Maldives is worth just $13.9 million today — and on Wednesday the two countries bound themselves to a Maldives trade target of $200 million within two years. Alongside the announcement came the exchange of 20 memorandums of understanding and agreements, witnessed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Maldivian President Dr Mohamed Muizzu at the Prime Minister’s House.

The signing was the centrepiece of President Muizzu’s three-day state visit — the first by a Maldivian president to Pakistan in 11 years, falling in the year the two countries complete 60 years of diplomatic relations. PM Shehbaz was blunt about how small the current figures are: existing trade, he said, is “just a fraction of our actual potential”, adding, “We will do our best jointly to raise this bilateral trade quantum from 13 million dollars to 200 million dollars in the next two years.” President Muizzu endorsed the target in full, called the agreements the start of “a new era” of partnership, and added the caveat that matters: agreements are meaningful only when they produce results.

What is in the package

The list runs wide — health, education, technical training, tourism, civil aviation, agriculture, fisheries, defence, maritime security, law enforcement and information technology, including a medicines-regulation link between Pakistan’s DRAP and the Maldives Food and Drug Authority. Pakistan also announced 20 additional undergraduate scholarships a year for Maldivian students, and support for Muizzu’s five-million-tree drive in the shape of 100,000 olive cuttings and 100,000 seeds of other species. Around 250 Pakistani doctors and paramedics already work in the Maldives, the prime minister noted.

The test comes on Thursday

Both leaders promised to work personally on implementation, and the first checkpoint arrives quickly: the Maldives-Pakistan Business Forum meets on Thursday, putting business leaders and investors from both countries in the same room. The target on paper is ambitious — nearly fifteen times the current trade. Whether the market takes it seriously is what the forum will show.