Sixty years of friendship, US$13 million of trade: can the Islamabad agreements change Maldives-Pakistan ties?

On the morning of 21 October 2026, at the Prime Minister's House in Islamabad, President Mohamed Muizzu and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif watched officials exchange 20 memoranda of understanding. The memoranda set out what the two governments intend to do together. They commit no money and create no legal obligations by themselves; the programmes, contracts and budgets come later.

The two leaders then set a target that drew the most attention in both countries: to raise trade between them from about US$13 million a year to US$200 million within two years.

Islamabad, 21 October 2026·7 pictures

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President Muizzu and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif shake hands after the exchange of agreements.The President's OfficeThe hall at the Prime Minister’s House where the agreements were exchanged and the leaders made joint press statements.The President's OfficePrime Minister Sharif delivers his press statement.The President's OfficePresident Muizzu delivers his press statement.The President's Office

President Muizzu said agreements matter only when they produce results.The President's OfficeThe joint press statements followed the exchange of 20 memoranda of understanding.The President's OfficePresident Muizzu at the signing table.The President's Office

For six decades the Maldives and Pakistan have been close partners in almost everything except commerce.

A friendship built on classrooms, hospitals and a bank

Diplomatic relations began on 26 July 1966, a year after the Maldives became independent. The links that followed were practical and personal rather than commercial.

Habib Bank Limited, one of Pakistan's largest banks, has served the Maldives since 1976 and is still there. Pakistan gifted the building that houses the People's Majlis, opened in 1998. After the 2004 tsunami, Pakistan Navy ships rescued 367 tourists from remote islands and delivered relief supplies, according to Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Pakistan also gifted the country's first medical college, whose first class of doctors completed their degrees in 2024.

Above all, Pakistan became a place where Maldivians studied. For decades Pakistani scholarships have trained Maldivian doctors, engineers, dentists and pharmacists, and the programme continues today. About 250 Pakistani doctors and paramedics now work in Maldivian hospitals and health centres.

Previous high-level visits built on these ties. President Abdulla Yameen's visit in May 2015 produced four agreements on health, education, sport and drug control. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit to Malé in July 2017 added six more, and created a joint business council and a working group on trade.

Why trade has stayed so small

Despite that history, the flow of goods between the two countries has remained modest. Pakistan's own figures, compiled by the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) and Business Recorder, show its exports to the Maldives rising only slowly, from US$5.7 million in 2018 to US$8.9 million in 2023. The longer record held by the United Nations goes back to 1990, when Pakistan sold the Maldives goods worth about half a million dollars. For most of the 1990s and early 2000s the figure was between US$1 million and US$3 million a year. It first passed US$5 million in 2008, and has hovered between about US$6 million and US$9 million since 2013.

Trade in the other direction is almost nil. Pakistan recorded about US$30,000 of imports from the Maldives in 2023 in UN data; the FPCCI puts Maldivian sales at about US$0.2 million that year, mostly scrap metal. The occasional larger figures in Pakistan's records, such as US$6.3 million in 2016, were one-off items like fuel and boats rather than Maldivian products.

The Maldivian side records a higher figure. According to UN trade data summarised by Trading Economics, the Maldives imported US$13.4 million of goods from Pakistan in 2025. This is the figure both leaders used. The difference between the two records is common in small markets: many Pakistani goods reach Malé through Colombo or Dubai, and may be counted differently at each end.

On either measure, Pakistan is a small supplier. The Maldives imported US$3.62 billion of goods in 2025. Pakistan's share, by GMM's calculation, was about 0.4 percent. The Pakistan Business Council ranked Pakistan as the Maldives' 33rd trading partner in 2023; on the 2025 UN figures it is 28th.

The share has barely moved since 1995. In the UN data, Pakistan's share of the Maldives' goods imports has stayed between about 0.2 and 0.7 percent across those years. The Maldives' imports grew more than thirteen-fold over the period, and Pakistan's sales grew roughly in step with them.

Of the US$13.4 million the Maldives bought from Pakistan in 2025, about a third was medicines (US$4.35 million). Almost half was food: fruit and vegetable products, rice and other cereals, vegetables, meat, tea and spices. Most of the rest was cement and building stone. These are the goods a country of island communities, importing almost everything it eats and uses, needs most.

Where the Maldives buys instead

The Maldives' largest suppliers in 2025, according to UN trade data, were China (US$699 million), India (US$531 million), the United Arab Emirates (US$418 million) and Oman (US$342 million), followed by Malaysia (US$214 million), the United States (US$144 million), Singapore (US$133 million) and Sri Lanka (US$131 million). Pakistan, at US$13.4 million, was 28th, just ahead of Egypt.

Pakistan is a large producer of rice, fruit, meat, textiles, cement and medicines. What keeps its sales to the Maldives small is practical:

• No direct sea route. There is no regular shipping service between Karachi and Malé. Cargo is moved at Colombo or Dubai, which adds time and cost. In 2019 the Maldivian ambassador to Pakistan told Lahore businesspeople that freight from Karachi to Malé cost far more than to Colombo.
• No direct flights. Pakistani traders cannot easily visit the market, and perishable goods cannot be flown in. The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce has described the absence of air links as the main reason for low trade.
• Little market presence. According to the Pakistan Business Council, Pakistan covers the Maldives from its trade office in Colombo, its exporters have little information about the Maldivian market, and many need credit to compete.

Twenty agreements in a single morning

The October visit was designed to address these gaps alongside the political relationship. The President arrived on 20 October with First Lady Sajidha Mohamed and a delegation that included Defence Minister Hassan Rasheed. On 21 October he held talks with the Prime Minister, met President Asif Ali Zardari, received an honorary doctorate from the International Islamic University Islamabad, and met Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir. On 22 October both leaders addressed a business forum. Dawn described the trip as the first visit to Pakistan by a Maldivian president in eleven years. Muizzu told the ceremony that the trip came "after a decade-long interval" and offered "an important opportunity not simply to celebrate the friendship of the past but to define the partnership of the future", according to Dawn.

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The exchange of 20 agreements·8 pictures

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Both delegations line up for the exchange at the Prime Minister’s House.The President's OfficeMaldivian and Pakistani officials exchange signed memoranda of understanding as the two leaders look on, 21 October 2026.The President's OfficeMaldivian and Pakistani officials exchange signed memoranda of understanding as the two leaders look on, 21 October 2026.The President's Office

Maldivian and Pakistani officials exchange signed memoranda of understanding as the two leaders look on, 21 October 2026.The President's OfficeMaldivian and Pakistani officials exchange signed memoranda of understanding as the two leaders look on, 21 October 2026.The President's OfficeAmong the agreements are cooperation on police training and on drug control.The President's Office

Maldivian and Pakistani officials exchange signed memoranda of understanding as the two leaders look on, 21 October 2026.The President's OfficeEach agreement was announced from the side of the hall before the folders were exchanged.The President's Office

Neither government has published the texts of the agreements or the names of the officials who signed them. The fullest list, published by Dawn, is grouped below. Dawn's list runs to 21 lines against the official count of 20, so two items may share one document.

The Nation also reported five agreements between the Maldives National University and Pakistani universities, including the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST). It is not clear whether these are among the 20.

Both leaders were careful about what the documents are. "These memoranda will open new avenues for cooperation among multiple sectors, but agreements are meaningful only when they produce results," President Muizzu said; the next step was "to translate these understandings into tangible opportunities and meaningful benefits for the people of both nations". Prime Minister Sharif promised "prompt decision-making and speedy implementation" and said he would work personally to turn the memoranda into action, as Dawn reported.

What a fifteen-fold rise in two years would take

Moving from US$13.4 million to US$200 million means multiplying trade by almost 15. By GMM's calculation, it would have to almost quadruple in each of the two years, to about US$52 million in the first and US$200 million in the second. In the Maldivian record, trade with Pakistan has never doubled in a single year.

At US$200 million — almost all of it Pakistani goods, since Maldivian sales to Pakistan are negligible — Pakistan would supply about 5.5 percent of the country's imports, placing it roughly seventh or eighth among the Maldives' suppliers. That is about one and a half times what Sri Lanka sold to the Maldives in 2025: US$131 million in the UN record, US$132 million by Sri Lanka's own count. It is about a quarter of the two-way trade between India and the Maldives, which reached about US$800 million in 2024-25.

The scale is achievable in principle. The Pakistan Business Council estimates that, comparing what Pakistan already sells worldwide with what the Maldives buys, there is room for more than US$100 million each in foodstuffs, chemicals and medicines, minerals including cement, and machinery. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif acknowledged the gap himself, telling the press that the trade between the two countries was "just a fraction of our potential". Achieving it on this timetable is the harder part.

A ship that sails directly

Prime Minister Sharif told the business forum that a "reliable direct shipping line" from Karachi or Gwadar to Malé was needed, according to Edition. India's experience is a useful guide. When the Shipping Corporation of India began a direct service to the Maldives in 2020, its freight rates were reported at US$850 to US$1,000 per container, around three times the rates via Colombo or Dubai. A direct line saves time, but it reduces cost only when there is enough cargo to fill the ships regularly. A Pakistan service would face the same problem at first. Sharif put the case in the language of the sea: "The same ocean that touches the shores of Karachi and Gwadar embraces the islands of the Maldives," he said, according to Dawn.

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A flight that connects the two capitals

The Prime Minister directed Pakistan's aviation ministry to study direct flights. Express Urdu reported that both Karachi-Malé and Gwadar-Malé routes would be examined, and President Muizzu said the Maldivian national airline aims to begin flights between Malé and Karachi. No date has been set. Flights would allow business visits, fresh food exports and, importantly, tourism. The Maldives received more than two million visitors in 2025, and its five largest source markets were China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. Pakistan was not among them.

Medicines and food through government channels

The fastest route to higher trade is through the goods the Maldives already buys from Pakistan. Two agreements matter here. The first links the Maldives Food and Drug Authority with Pakistan's Drug Regulatory Authority. If it leads to faster approval of Pakistani medicines, already the largest single item in the trade, it could widen choice and help keep prices down. The second links the STO with the Trading Corporation of Pakistan, and Pakistan offered to supply essential food and medicines through direct government-to-government arrangements. Large government purchase contracts can move trade figures much faster than individual private orders.

Exporters who know the market and can finance it

The final factor is commercial. Pakistan announced that a delegation of ministers and business leaders would visit Malé, and Prime Minister Sharif said he wanted "robust agreements", not only memoranda. Pakistani exporters will need market information, local partners, credit, and reliable ways to make and receive payments in dollars. The Joint Economic Commission, which first met in 2005, is to be convened soon and is the obvious place to agree product-by-product goals.

Doctors, students and five million trees

Beyond trade, the agreements deepen the areas where the relationship is already strongest. Pakistan said it would send more health professionals under the recruitment agreement, offered more medical school places and internships for Maldivian graduates, and offered 20 additional undergraduate scholarships a year.

Pakistan also offered 100,000 olive cuttings and 100,000 seeds over a year for the Maldives' programme to plant five million trees. Express Urdu reported that Pakistani specialists would help establish nurseries, aiming for one million plants within three years.

Security cooperation at sea and on land

Two agreements cover defence and maritime security, and their terms have not been published. Field Marshal Asim Munir emphasised "defence cooperation, institutional linkages and professional exchanges", according to Daily Jang. Dawn reported the joint statement as underscoring "the importance of strengthening defence cooperation". For a country of about 1,200 islands spread across a large ocean area, maritime security is mainly about fisheries protection, search and rescue, and stopping drug smuggling. The separate agreements on drug control and police training reflect this.

Daily Pakistan's Urdu edition reported a meeting between Pakistan's Minister of State for Interior, Talal Chaudhry, and the Maldivian Minister of Homeland Security, Ali Ihsan, at which both sides agreed to cooperate against illegal migration, human trafficking and organised crime.

How Pakistan's Urdu newspapers told the story

Pakistan's Urdu-language newspapers, which reach a much larger domestic audience than its English papers, covered the visit in detail. Daily Jang led with "پاک مالدیپ، دفاع سمیت 20 معاہدے" ("Pakistan and Maldives: 20 agreements, including defence") and emphasised technology, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. Express Urdu carried the details of the Gwadar route, the business delegation and the nursery programme. Daily Pakistan's Urdu edition reported the interior ministry talks.

The Urdu press also gave prominence to Prime Minister Sharif's remarks on India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. Express Urdu quoted him as saying "پانی ہماری ریڈ لائن ہے" ("water is our red line"). The Maldivian side did not comment on these remarks. President Muizzu's statements focused on bilateral cooperation and on reviving the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which has not held a leaders' summit since 2014. Both leaders supported an independent Palestinian state.

Before the visit, a column in Nawa-i-Waqt titled "مالدیب کے ساتھ محبت کے پاکستانی رشتے" ("Pakistan's affectionate ties with the Maldives") recalled the tsunami assistance, the Majlis building and the Maldivian students at the International Islamic University, and named tourism, seafood and agriculture as the natural areas for investment.

What a larger trade relationship would mean for both countries

If the target is met, or even approached, the relationship would change in character.

For the Maldives, the main gain is choice. A country that imports most of its food, medicines and building materials from a few suppliers is exposed when one supply route is disrupted. A reliable additional source of rice, fruit, meat, medicines and cement, arriving directly rather than through third ports, would strengthen the country's resilience and could help hold down prices. More Pakistani doctors and more scholarships would continue to support the health system.

For Pakistan, the Maldives offers a market of US$3.62 billion in imports, more than two million foreign visitors a year who must be fed and housed, and a stronger presence in the Indian Ocean. A shipping service to Malé would also give Pakistan's ports, including Gwadar, a regular regional route.

For the relationship, the ties would rest on more than goodwill. For sixty years the ties have rested on education, health and diplomacy. A trade relationship worth US$200 million would add businesses, shipping companies and airlines with a direct interest in keeping it strong.

There is one imbalance to note. Almost all the trade would flow from Pakistan to the Maldives, which sells little to Pakistan apart from tourism. For the Maldives, the most practical way to balance the relationship is to attract Pakistani visitors, which makes direct flights as important as ships.

The milestones to watch over the next year

The record of earlier visits shows that agreements alone do not move trade: the joint business council created in 2017 did not change the figures significantly. Daily Pakistan noted that the new memoranda are a framework, with specific programmes to be decided in follow-up talks. These would be the signs that it is moving:

1. A meeting of the Joint Economic Commission with product-level targets.
2. A decision, with a date, on direct flights between Malé and Karachi.
3. A regular direct shipping service, or a scheduled trial.
4. The first government-to-government contracts for food and medicines through the STO.
5. Published plans for the health, education and security agreements, with numbers of doctors, scholarships and trainees.

Some facts are not yet public: the texts and signatories of the agreements, whether the university agreements are counted among the 20, and the outcome of the business forum. Reported figures for current trade also vary between about US$9 million and US$13.9 million, depending on which country's records are used.

President Muizzu said in Islamabad that agreements are meaningful only when they produce results.