Daily Times

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment, Abdul Razak Dawood on Sunday said that the government has fully implemented the trade diversification policy and was currently seeing an increase in Pakistan’s product and geographical exports in the global market.

The main objective of the government’s Trade Diversification Policy’ was to introduce new trade products of a country’s exports and to create new non-traditional markets at the global and regional level to increase domestic exports, Abdul Razak Dawood told APP.

For the last seventy years, Pakistan exports had depended on the traditional markets of ten countries, and local textiles had relied on only five markets, including the United States, China, European Union, the United Kingdom and Bangladesh, he said.

The adviser said that Pakistan was currently in the process of introducing new markets and new products in addition to traditional markets and traditional export products in which the present government had made great strides despite the Covid-19period.

The Ministry of Commerce has launched the ‘Look Africa campaign’ in search of new unconventional markets and did a lot of work on Central Asian markets, which has resulted in good exports.

He said that in addition, new industrial units were being set up to promote product diversification to boost domestic exports in information technology, light engineering including tractors, fisheries and electronics and mobiles.

So far, the Country’s exports of non-traditional products, including information technology, have grown by 60 percent in the last four months. Razak Dawood said that the increase in the existing exports was a manifestation of good policy of the present government during Covid-19.

He said that like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), “We also need to strengthen our regional bloc in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and increase bilateral trade activities in the regional countries.”

He said that the government had reduced tariffs and duties on raw materials to zero percent to increase the country’s exports. These include textile, fiber and jute where tariffs are discounted.

Replying to a question, he said that Pakistan exports to Central Asian Republics (CARs) countries increased to $145 million in 2020-21 from $104 million in 2019-20.

For six months, from July-December 2021, these exports increased by 173 percent to $134 million from $49 million during the same period last year, he said.

“The Ministry of Commerce’s ‘Silk Route Reconnect’ initiative iss now bearing results,” he added.

To increase the trilateral trade Volume with CARs, the Adviser said that the Pakistan-Uzbekistan transit trade agreement was signed in 2021 at Tashkent and both countries discussed opening banks in each other’s countries. “We are negotiating Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) with Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan,” adding, transit trade agreements were also being negotiated.

The advisor said that for truck movement, their negotiations were at an advanced stage.

Replying to another question on Information Technology exports, he said that there was a lot of scope to increase exports in Information Technology (IT) from non-traditional sectors at present.

The current annual $2.5 billion IT exports are very low, “We now have an annual export target of $4 billion this year, he said.

Razak Dawood said that there was a need to promote export culture in the country at present and the government wanted to increase exports on a priority basis. The adviser said that Pakistan’s economy had made significant progress reflecting a blend of stabilization and structural reforms despite being challenged at the economic and geo-political front and is moving on a positive growth trajectory.

He added that Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), that use e-Commerce platforms, are around five times more likely to export than those in the traditional economy and the policy aims to pave the way for holistic growth of e-Commerce in the country by creating an enabling environment in which enterprises have equal opportunity to grow steadily.