Seeking improvement: Branding, product registration needed: FPCCI

Country losing out due to inappropriate price offered in international market.

KARACHI: Pakistan is incurring losses worth millions of dollars on account of inappropriate prices in the international market due to non-branding and non-registration of many products, said Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry President Zakaria Usman.

He added that registration and brand recognition is widely important during the process of international customs clearance.

“We must take help from the developed countries for branding our products,” said Usman.



He was speaking during a meeting between FPCCI’s standing committee to counter fake products and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and the representatives of the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) IPR cell.

FBR’s IPR Director General Rubina also attended the meeting and briefed the participants about the work in progress on IPR in the FBR for the facilitation of the business community. She was accompanied by FBR’s IPR Cell Director Ibrahim Baghio.

Rubina informed that IPR Cell in the FBR is not completely operational but it is being established for which her department is seeking suggestions and guidelines from the stakeholders including FPCCI and other chambers and trade associations.

She further said that the international rules on IPR for trade and customs are being studied and these rules will be finalised after making changes as per our requirement in close coordination and assistance of Intellectual Property Organisation (IPO), Islamabad. She also briefed the customs related issues of IPR.

Engineer MA Jabbar suggested that the IPR Cell should draft the rules and regulations and send it to IPO, Islamabad and business community for necessary suggestions and recommendations.

“The organisational setup is also very important. An advisory board under the umbrella of FPCCI and consisting of prominent businessmen, exporters, lawyers and officials from PSQCA and IPO should be established,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd, 2014.

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