‘Country must increasingly focus on trade in services’

TDAP stresses need for plan to increase exports of services industry.

KARACHI: Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) Secretary Rabiya Javeri Agha has stressed that Pakistan should enhance competitiveness of its services sector and promote its exports in a bid to achieve higher economic growth.

“There is a huge potential for trade in services, particularly in telecom and transport sectors,” she said while speaking at the inaugural session of a training workshop on “Trade in Services”.

The training course was jointly conducted by the International Trade Centre (ITC) and Pakistan Institute of Trade and Development (PITAD), Islamabad, a public sector institute formerly called Foreign Trade Institute of Pakistan.

The workshop had the support of Trade Related Technical Assistance (TRTA) II, a programme funded by the European Union for creating awareness of trade in services.

Traditionally, Agha said, Pakistan had been concentrating on export of goods, but now that the services sector constitutes more than half of the gross domestic product, the country should plan for growth in export of services.

She said that the TDAP would continue to support the ITC, PITAD and TRTA-II in their efforts to promote the services sector.

World Trade Institute Switzerland Head of Academics and External Programmes Professor Pierre Sauve, a renowned expert on trade in services who conducted training sessions, talked about growth potential for Pakistan’s services sector and the country’s negotiating priorities in the Trade in Services Agreement.

PITAD Director General Sajid Hussain suggested that the public and private sector should join hands to increase the share of services export in total exports of the country. The share of services sector in the GDP is already above 52% and would further increase in coming years, he said.

ITC Programme Officer Mohammad Owais Khan said the ITC had provided assistance to training and research organisations in Pakistan to build their institutional capacity.

The ITC has facilitated the signing of a memorandum of understanding between PITAD and the World Trade Institute which has contributed immensely to building the capacity of policymakers.

Khan vowed that the ITC would continue to provide technical assistance to Pakistani institutes to enable them to benefit from international trade under the TRTA-II programme.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2013.

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