Jehanzeb an excellent choice: Ex-APTMA chief

Sunday, July 05, 2009
By Ansar Abbasi, The News, Pakistani Newspaper

ISLAMABAD: While the two top civil service groups — the District Management Group (DMG) and Foreign Service of Pakistan (FSP) — continue to be at each other's throat over Jehanzeb Khan's appointment as the country's ambassador to Paris, a former chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) has thrown his weight behind the DMG's Khan.

In an e-mail to this correspondent, Arif Saeed, son of former chairman PIA Ahmed Saeed and nephew of Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar, wrote: "Apropos your coverage of the appointment of a DMG officer, Jehanzeb Khan, as the Pakistani ambassador to France. I would like to recount my experiences with this gentleman to clear the air and hopefully the debate on whether merit has been compromised in this matter.

"My first interface with him took place when I was chairman of the leading textile association in Pakistan. Jehanzeb Khan, a fluent French speaker, made sure I flew to Karachi during the Expo-Pakistan 2005 to give Pakistan's view on how France could help Pakistan in the European Union Anti-Dumping case.

"He had apparently spent months, motivating leading French companies to visit Karachi for the expo, including the top brass of Renault, and my counterpart Guillaume Sarkozy, head of the Employers' Federation of France and older brother of the then French senior minister Nicolas Sarkozy. This was despite the security concerns that existed at the time and the unfortunate incident surrounding the French naval engineers in 2002 in the same city.

"Apparently, he had had to invite the Minister for State and Chairman EPB to France to persuade these people to come over, but had persisted and lobbied intensively for them to collaborate with Pakistani textile manufacturers, to use our competitive production facilities and their marketing channels. He also used the occasion introducing them to our leading textile manufacturers and trying his best, as commercial counsellor in Paris, to do his bit to help us attain the French vote in pending European Union trade matters. "The second time I met him he was responsible for arranging detailed interaction between French and Italian business leaders and the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz and his delegation in Rome. Apparently, this was part of the region he was covering at the time. He was diligent, courteous and effective.

The very impressive show ended with an unusually focused dinner meeting where he had assigned prime seating to businessmen in the Pakistan delegation as well as related European businessmen. He had obviously spent weeks setting it up and many years later, in the face of sustained criticism for his appointment as the Pakistani ambassador to France, deserves recognition for the excellent work he has done in the years he has worked in the Embassy in Paris.

"I have had scarce contact with him over the years that have passed since, but if the government has sought to appoint him as our ambassador to France, I must give them credit for an excellent choice. "A merit-based commercial organization would have done this much sooner."