KARACHI: Head of Pakistan’s top trade development body has said that
the country was going to surpass its export target of $22 billion this
year as the data of first four months of the fiscal year had posted an
increase of 20 per cent. “We are on track, we will surpass the export
target,” he said.
Syed Mohibullah Shah, chief executive, Trade
Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) while addressing a press
conference at the conference room of the Finance and Trade Centre, said
that TDAP had been restructured after consultation with the trade
bodies and chambers for five months and a target has been set to double
the exports in the next five years.
Shah said TDAP developed a
new export strategy (NES) to increase the production of the value added
products and boost exports. He said Pakistan’s exports had increased by
11 per cent over the last six years from 2002 to 2008, but they created
a plan to increase it by 20 per cent for the next five years.
He
said textile and clothing recorded around 55 to 60 per cent of total
exports with a share of $12 billion, because it changed raw cotton into
value added goods after using investments, technology and skills. Other
agro based products would also bring huge wealth if these three areas
were addressed.
Shah said Pakistan’s economy was usually
agro-based but there was not much production beyond the basic
achievements of the crops.
Pakistan was the fourth largest
producer of cotton, fourth largest milk producer, sixth largest
producer of wheat, twentieth largest producer of meat, third largest in
mango production, fourth in dates, but the unavailability of value
added goods had kept it behind.
Citing the example of Thailand,
Shah said the place did not produce wheat or corn but was a leading
producer of pasta, contrary to which, Pakistan was the sixth largest
produce of wheat in the world but it had ranked sixtieth in number in
pasta production.
Similarly, Halal food was a market of $158
billion but Pakistan had no share in it. “We are good enough at the
basics, but not at processing,” he said.
He said mainly four
sectors; agro-food, textile and clothing, minerals and services had the
potential to earn $5-6 billion each in the next five years. Chief
executive TDA said that the industrial revolution that arrived in
Europe 200 years ago was only seen in one textile sector in Pakistan.
TDAP,
in search of new market for the exporters, had divided its divisions in
to three categories; Asia, Europe & Americas, and Africa to focus
its energies and resources on how best to utilise the opportunities
offered by these markets for increasing exports in the constantly
evolving external environment. Asia would be the main market for
Pakistan, Shah said.
He said Pakistani exporters, small, medium
as well as large, were the centre of TDAP’s New Export Strategy. TDAP
has set up for the first time, a facilitation division, devoted towards
helping exporters in availing the opportunities as well as in the
removal of obstacles in expansion of the country’s exports.
TDAP
chief said there were several barriers for a newcomer in the field of
trade and investment, including but not limited to, difficulty in
getting loans, concession in taxation and subsidies, and collection of
data and information. TDA would work to minimise all the barriers, he
said.
