By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has ordered a feasibility study into direct flights to the Maldives, and the Maldivian president has announced that his country’s national airline wants to start a service between Malé and Karachi.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Mohamed Muizzu set out plans for direct air and sea links at the Pakistan-Maldives Business Forum in Islamabad on Thursday. A day earlier, the two leaders had agreed to work towards raising bilateral trade from $13.9m to $200m within two years.
“The air link is extremely important,” Sharif told the forum. He said he had already instructed the Ministry of Civil Aviation to prepare a quick feasibility study, “be it Pakistan International Airlines or any other airline in Pakistan”, to “find ways and means” of running a first flight carrying tourists and business people to Malé.
“We don’t have direct flights from Male to Islamabad or Karachi, so this air link is very important,” he said.
The prime minister said he had also told aviation officials to invite a Maldivian delegation to Pakistan to work out a plan for starting flights “as early as possible”. Muizzu had told him he had given similar instructions to his own country’s airline, Sharif added.
Speaking after the prime minister, Muizzu confirmed the plan. “I am pleased to announce that Maldivian, our national airline, aims to establish a direct air link between Male and Karachi soon,” he said. “This service will make travel easier for the people of our two countries, creating new opportunities for trade and tourism.”
Both men also called for a direct shipping route. “Unless we have reliable, direct shipping schedule from Karachi to Malé or from Gwadar, we will not be able to meet our targets efficiently and effectively,” Sharif said.
Muizzu urged shipping, port and logistics companies in both countries to explore commercially viable direct connections. “For an island nation, maritime connectivity is an economic lifeline,” he said. “We must create more efficient corridors through which that trade can move.”
Sharif announced that a Pakistani delegation of business leaders, ministers and government officials would travel to the Maldives within about a week of Muizzu’s return home. It will include exporters with experience of trading with the Maldives and will follow up on the understandings reached during the visit, he said.
“It’s all up to us to make use of this opportunity, do our homework, and make full preparation to achieve these targets through joint efforts and very close coordination,” he said.
Muizzu said Pakistan and the Maldives enjoyed strong political solidarity and diplomatic trust, but that their economic relationship had yet to reach its full potential.
He identified agriculture, food processing, pharmaceuticals, construction, renewable energy and Islamic finance as areas where Pakistani companies could invest. He said the Maldives’ reliance on imported food and its large tourism industry gave Pakistani exporters room to move beyond conventional sales into cold-chain logistics, temperature-controlled storage, food processing and climate-adaptive agricultural technology.
“For the Maldives, food security is not merely a commercial consideration,” he said. “As an island nation, resilient supply chains are a matter of national security.”
The market was larger than it appeared, he said, because the Maldives’ population of about half a million people was joined every year by more than two million international visitors.
In Wednesday’s talks Pakistan offered to supply essential food commodities and pharmaceuticals to the Maldives, including through government-to-government arrangements, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Muizzu said his government was expanding healthcare from regional tertiary hospitals towards modern facilities at island level. “Our demand for reliable, high-quality and certified medical supplies will therefore continue to grow,” he said, and invited Pakistani pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare providers to take part. He also invited construction, engineering and development firms to bid for work in housing, land reclamation, connectivity and other infrastructure.
The Maldives spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year importing diesel, Muizzu said, which made renewable energy another area for cooperation. “For us, therefore, the transition to clean energy is not only a climate imperative, it is an economic and fiscal necessity,” he said.
His government has set a target of generating 33 per cent of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2028, which would require more than a fourfold increase in renewable generation over five years.
The Maldivian president also pointed to Islamic finance and halal tourism and products, saying his country was strengthening its institutional frameworks for Sharia-compliant finance. Financial institutions, regulators and businesses in the two countries could explore sukuk, Islamic financial services and halal value chains, he said. He added that tourism, hospitality, information technology and education offered further openings, and urged Pakistani businesses to treat the Maldives as a partner in joint ventures rather than only a market for their goods.
Later, Muizzu thanked Sharif on social media for attending the forum and for “highlighting the key priorities that will guide our economic partnership into a new chapter”. He described the event as an important first step towards the aim of increasing trade over the next two years.
The leaders exchanged 20 cooperation agreements on Wednesday covering sectors including aviation, agriculture, health, tourism and maritime security. Other reports said the agreements also covered information technology, education, fisheries and defence.
It is the first visit to Pakistan by a Maldivian president in 11 years and coincides with the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which were established on 26 July 1966.
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