Business

Senate panel urges focus on diversification

Says dependence on just textile, agriculture needs to stop

APP July 20, 2018

The Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile directed on Thursday the Ministry of Commerce and Textile to focus on boosting the country’s exports. PHOTO: EXPRESS

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile directed on Thursday the Ministry of Commerce and Textile to focus on boosting the country’s exports in a bid to curb the trade deficit.

Pakistan faces a widening trade deficit that has taken on the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves, forcing the currency to weaken in the last eight months.

“We completely depend on export of textile and raw agriculture products,” said Senator Shibli Faraz while presiding over a meeting of the committee. “It will never help us increase exports beyond $30 billion.”

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He said reducing tariffs on machinery imports or other export-oriented material alone would not help boost foreign shipments. The government will have to take other initiatives to make export-oriented products more competitive and more value added, added the official.

He also urged ministry officials to work out a comprehensive and practical policy framework in this regard.

Senator Nauman Wazir said Pakistan and China enjoy cordial relations, but Islamabad was not deriving any extraordinary benefit from the friendship. “The trade gap between the countries is massive as our exports to China stand at $1.5 billion while imports are more than $15.5 billion,” he added.

He said China imports over 10 million tons of rice a year while the share allotted to Pakistan is negligible. China allows import of only 100,000 tons of Pakistani rice at 3 percent duty. Further duty of 55 percent is levied on additional rice import from Pakistan.

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“The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China should be reviewed as it is not benefitting Pakistan,” he said. “Country should take full advantage of tense China-US trade ties.”

An official of commerce ministry, Muhammad Tariq Huda, informed the committee that the country earns 47 percent of total revenue from international trade which should be reduced in order to minimise the cost of production of export-oriented goods.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2018.

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