December 02, 2016
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President AKIA, Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain implementation of three-year Trade Policy can stem continued fall in exports.
It took more than a year to design Strategic Trade Policy Framework 2015-18, but its implementation could not be ensured which has put a big question in the achievement of over-ambitious $35 billion export target by 2018, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that government had earmarked 20 billion rupees for the development of external trade while six billion rupees were to be utilised in the first year which has remained unspent.
He said that the policy is reported to be full of flaws; those who have drafted it has ignored some critical sector while favoured some other sectors due to political consideration which amounts to playing with the future of the country facing serious troubles.
The neglected sectors include agriculture, horticulture, and value addition in Halal products as well as fruits and vegetable, he said, adding that Pakistan can become world leader in Halal business whose annual volume is in trillions.
The policy itself has many loopholes including its apparent excessive focus on the manufacturing industry of a certain area which is not going down well with the business community, he said.
Poor governance in the concerned ministries, bureaucratic hurdles should be tackled and nothing should be allowed to waste more time which will propel exports, he demanded.
The veteran business leader said that the policy should be revisited on preference with an aim to fix the international and unintentional mistakes otherwise the announcement of pushing exports to 35 billion dollars will become a joke.
