TDAP chief selection: Garment exporters back man from public sector

Private professional may not be able to deal with complex bureaucracy.

KARACHI:

Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PRGMEA) Zonal Chairman Atiq A Kochra has said he is opposed to the idea of someone from the private sector replacing Tariq Puri as chief executive of the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP).

The Ministry of Commerce, which is the administrative ministry of the TDAP, terminated the services of Puri as TDAP chief executive on July 6.

Commenting on the proposal floated by some exporters that a veteran of the private sector should lead the TDAP, whose objective is to ensure export growth through better coordination between many public and private-sector stakeholders, Kochra said an ‘outsider’ might not get the cooperation and interdepartmental support within the government required to carry out the authority’s mission effectively.

“The job requires a lot of government dealing and interaction with stakeholders, some of them operate with complex bureaucracies. Moreover, we’ve had a chief executive from the private sector in the past, whose tenure was quite unremarkable,” Kochra told The Express Tribune, adding that prior experience of working in the government sector was needed for the job.

For the top position, he proposed the name of Mujeeb Ahmed Khan, who is currently heading the World Trade Organisation (WTO) cell at the TDAP. “He has vast knowledge of issues related to international trade. He has worked diligently for the pending European Union trade concessions package for 75 products of Pakistan, and has up-to-date knowledge of the GSP Plus issue,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2012.