Body proposes reduction in foreign trade officers by 10%

Committee will present its recommendations to premier soon for approval

ISLAMABAD':

 

A committee formed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has proposed reducing the number of foreign trade officers for overseas Pakistanis by 10%.

The eight-member body, headed by former secretary Nasir Khosa, was constituted for the appointment of trade officers abroad.

It also includes the finance, trade, economic affairs,  establishment division secretaries, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) director general revenue analysis, and former federal secretaries Asad Hayauddin and Shahid Ashraf Tarar.
It has recommended a decrease in the number of officers in other groups besides those in commerce.

It has suggested that in the trade and commerce group, the quota of officers of grade-18, grade-19, and grade-20, who would be deployed abroad, should be reduced by 60%, 50%, and 40%, respectively.

Sources said the body recommended assigning the responsibility of preparing the syllabus for conducting written and other tests to the commerce ministry.
The committee would present its recommendations to the premier soon for approval.

The process of appointing new trade officers would be kicked off after the prime minister’s nod.

The commerce ministry had already sent its proposed policy guidelines for the appointment of trade officers in Pakistani missions abroad to the prime minister for approval.

Currently, there are around 40 vacancies of trade officers lying vacant in various Pakistani missions across the world.

The sources said as per the commerce ministry's proposed guidelines , for the first time it had been recommended to make the psychological test of candidates mandatory for their appointment to the posts of foreign trade officers.

However, the premier had turned down the the commerce ministry's proposed policy guidelines and formed a committee to present its recommendations on the matter.

In January last year, a controversy had hit the process of posting 51 trade officers at the Pakistani missions abroad as the commerce ministry rejected 150 applications and postponed the written test of the candidates for one week.

The ministry had proposed to post 16 trade officers abroad during the ongoing quarter back then, while 35 more trade officers were to be posted in the last quarter of 2022. The ministry had approved applications of 300 candidates for the written test.

Then premier Imran Khan had directed the ministry to make the appointment process transparent and on merit.

However, the process became controversial as the ministry rejected nearly 150 applications.

The ministry also turned down the request of 26 officers of the audit and accounts department.