The global trade experts on Tuesday said that trade could play a key role in the post-COVID-19 economic recovery. Therefore, aligning policies with emerging realities is pertinently important, they said. Global trade experts shred this viewpoint during a webinar ‘Trade essential for Post Covid Economic Recovery’ organized by International Trade Center Geneva, (ITC) in collaboration with Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), said a press release issued.
Secretary Exports Policy Customs, FBR, Ihsanullah Shah, was of opinion that post-COVID-19 trade was facing unprecedented crises as many of the enterprises were struggling for survival. He said that the government had taken a number of steps to pull the exporters out of this grim situation including a blanket exemption and enhancing the rebate rates on almost 300 items including surgical goods, sports-related goods, textile-related goods etc.
Senior Policy Adviser Trade Facilitation, ITC, Geneva, Dr Muhammad Saeed explained that COVID-19, which was a public health crisis led to disruption on the supply and demand side resulting in an economic crisis of unprecedented magnitude. He opined that the mindset needed to be changed pertaining to policy consideration and regulatory compliance for the exporter and importers.
National Coordinator of ITC-ReMIT, Dr Tauqir Shah, suggested that the key role in post-COVID-19 recovery had to be played by digitally enabled SMEs.
Therefore, the trade support institutions had to handhold SMEs, especially women-owned SMEs in order to become digitally enabled, he added.
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, IBA Karachi, Dr Aadil Nakhoda was of the view that the biggest challenge was the disruption to the global value chain. He said that the trade cost had increased both for the importer and exporters and this had immense implications for trade.
He suggested that Pakistan had to think about positioning itself in this model of globalization. Besides, more focus has to be paid to the green recovery.