Despite FTA, Pakistan struggles in trade with Malaysia

LCCI chief says exporters have failed to take advantage of agreement

LAHORE: Pakistan has failed to bring any improvement in exports to Malaysia in the past three years despite signing a free trade agreement (FTA) and has a negligible share in imports of over $140 billion by the Southeast Asian country, said Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Malik Tahir Javed.

“Pakistan and Malaysia have close and cordial relations but trade ties are not as good as these should be,” Javed said while talking to Pakistan High Commissioner-designate to Malaysia M Nafees Zakaria at the chamber premises.



In 2014, Pakistan’s exports to Malaysia were worth $234 million, which fell to $186 million and $152 million in the next two years. In contrast, Pakistan’s imports from Malaysia increased from $911 million to $945 million in 2016.

The LCCI president noted that balance of trade had always been in favour of Malaysia and said though the trade gap had been narrowing consistently over the past five years, imports from Malaysia were still six times higher than exports.

“We have failed to take some advantage of the FTA. It provided us a good platform for a win-win situation but Pakistan achieved a far lesser advantage than its potential,” he remarked.

The FTA between Pakistan and Malaysia had come into effect in January 2008.

Talking about a huge dip in bilateral trade which stood at $2.97 billion in 2011 and remained stuck at $1.1 billion in 2015 and 2016, the LCCI president underlined the need for taking immediate steps.

He sought support from the Ministry of Commerce and particularly from the commercial section of Pakistan’s High Commission in Malaysia. “We want to acquire some justifiable share in trade with Malaysia. There is a huge potential of exporting Pakistani rice, fresh fruits like citrus and mango,” he said.

While acknowledging that the FTA provided Pakistan’s exporters certain edge in the shape of duty relief on fruits, vegetables and other goods, Javed decried that they could not fully utilise the opportunities as they knew little about packaging and food certification requirements.



He suggested joint ventures in the fields of livestock and dairy, food processing, energy, chemicals, Halal products and particularly light engineering, which could strengthen trade ties between the two sides.

Earlier, Pakistan’s high commissioner gave assurances to businessmen that he would make efforts to turn Pakistan mission in Malaysia into a match-making point for the business community.

He said he would also utilise Malaysian media to highlight the soft image of Pakistan as in today’s world media was a strong tool for disseminating information.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2017.

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