Daily Times

LAHORE: A team of Asia Development Bank (ADB), led by Peter Turner, on Wednesday visited the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and discussed issues of mutual interest with LCCI President Abdul Basit.

The two sides discussed the national transportation policy, economic development of Pakistan, business climate in the country and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

LCCI Senior Vice President Amjad Ali Jawa and Zeeshan Khalil also spoke on the occasion.

Peter Turner said that effectiveness of transportation system was directly related to trade and economic activities. He said that inefficiencies in the performance of the transport sector of Pakistan costs economy 4% to 6% of the GDP annually. He said that the Asian Development Bank had been assisting Pakistan address this issue but investment in transportation infrastructure must be backed by institutional improvement.

On the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, he said that it was an important project that would help connect Iran, Turkey, Central Asian states and Afghanistan. He said that to get good results from the CPEC, good transportation system was a must for the movement of trading goods.

LCCI President Abdul Basit said that the national transportation policy would supplement the government’s efforts to improve transport infrastructure that would help enhance local and regional trade. He said that well planned, safe, better maintained and regionally connected transport infrastructure was the key to unlocking economic growth potential of Pakistan.

The LCCI president said it was good to see that seaports, rail network, motorways, tunnels and bridges were being developed by spending billions of rupees to support the future requirements of intra-regional trade. He said that the current infrastructural development had opened many avenues to expand trade links to Central Asian states as well as to Turkey via road and sea routes.

Abdul Basit said that Pakistan had acceded to the TIR Convention 1975 last year and this year its implementation was scheduled, which would facilitate international carriage of goods by road under a harmonised system of International Road Transport Union (IRU). “We are worried about low ranking in one of the factors of ease of doing business – ‘trading across borders’. As per the World Bank Report, 2017, Pakistan stands at 172 out of 192 countries.”

He said that on April 6, 2017, the government had approved cross-border trade reforms to be implemented in different phases, which would help Pakistan improve its ranking. However, the gap between suggestive measures and ground realities had to be minimised to achieve the desired results, he said. He said that such factors had further necessitated the need of having a well-thought-out national transport policy.