Commerce Ministry Asked To Align Its Direction In Right Way To Boost Exports

Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile on Thursday directed the ministry of commerce and textile to align their direction in the right way to give a boost to the country's export and to reduce the trade deficit.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Jul, 2018 ) :Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile on Thursday directed the ministry of commerce and textile to align their direction in the right way to give a boost to the country's export and to reduce the trade deficit.

"We are totally depending on export of textile and raw agriculture products which will never help us increasing the exports beyond $30 billion," Senator Shibli Faraz said while presiding over meeting of the committee held here today.

He said only reducing tariffs on import of machinery or other export oriented material would not helpful in increasing exports, but the government must have to take other initiatives to make the export oriented products more competitive and more value added.

He also asked the ministry officials to workout a comprehensive and doable policy framework in this regard.

Senator Nauman Wazir said Pakistan and China were enjoying relations deeper than oceans, higher than Himalayas, but Pakistan was not getting extra ordinary favor from its friend.

"The trade gap between the countries is very huge as our exports to China stands at $1.5 billion while imports are more than $15.5 billion which needs to be shrunken," he added.

He said China imports over 10 million tones of rice annually while Pakistan's share is very negligible due to the fact that China allows import of only 100,000 tones of rice from Pakistan at 3 percent import duty while 55 percent import duty is levied on import of additional rice.

He said the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China needed to be reviewed as it was not giving benefits to Pakistan.

Moreover he suggested to take full advantage of the situation arising out of tensed trade ties between China and USA.

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 minimize the cost of production of export oriented goods.

Earlier while discussing the compliance status of the recommendations of the committee regarding National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL), the official of NICL informed the committee that the corporation was at an advance stage of finalizing various proposals for insuring motorways and highways commuters and vehicles for accidents causing injury and death to person and damage to vehicles, insuring educational institutions and students and exploring options for launching health insurance.

The committee was further informed that new business avenues and a comprehensive strategy was under development which could be shared with the committee in three months time.

The meeting also discussed the point of public importance raised by Senator Mian Muhammad Atique Shaikh in the Senate regarding collapse of power looms sector in Faisalabad.

The committee directed Secretary Textile ministry Shahrukh Nusrat to work out a strategy to revive the power loom sector in Faisalabad.