LAHORE: Newly appointed Trade Officers of Pakistan have sought assistance and cooperation from the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) in upsurge of textile exports and to explore investment potential in textile sector.
A 14-member delegation of officers selected from different occupational groups for posting in Pakistani missions abroad as Consul Generals, Ministers, Consulars and attachés visited APTMA Lahore office on Monday.
Chairman APTMA Abdul Rahim Nasir, Chairman APTMA Northern Zone Hamid Zaman, Senior Vice Chairman APTMA Kamran Arshad and Secretary General APTMA North, Raza Baqir welcomed the delegation.
Exchanging views during their visit to the APTMA, Trade & Investment Officers underlined the need to hold regular online meetings with APTMA members so that they could jointly explore trade and investment opportunities and create strong linkages between the business communities of Pakistan and the host countries.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman APTMA Abdul Rahim Nasir said the textile sector alone represents 46% of total manufacturing sector and around 40% of total labour force. He informed that textile exports of US$15.4 billion registered in FY21 are expected to fetch $20 billion by close of the current financial year. He added that performance of textile exports during May this year was highly recommendable recording upsurge of 50% over the last year and it was encouraging to note that the value added sector in textile has shown unprecedented growth.
Rahim said the trade and investment officers serving the country’s missions in over 50 countries can play an important role to boost up exports. He suggested that these officers should participate in all exhibitions and prepare reports for the trade associations and general exporters to help explore new markets and exploit trade opportunities.
Talking on this occasion, Hamid Zaman, Chairman APTMA North said that Trade Officers should act vibrantly and explore all the major markets and commercial centres in the countries of their posting to help augment exports. He further added that the trade missions abroad should facilitate the foreign buyers and investors during visas processing so that they could make business trips to Pakistan easily. He stressed on setting up of trade facilitation centres across the global markets.
While referring to the preferential custom duties and tariffs being granted to our competitors, he said that trade officers must lobby in their countries of posting for preferential customs duties and tariffs for Pakistan so that more and more goods could be sent to all export destinations from Pakistan.
He further said that CIS countries are very important as our goods can be exported through the land route. He stressed that there is urgency to further expand trade to this important region through Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
He was confident that Pakistan’s exports can easily be enhanced by giving targets to trade/ commercial officers and granting incentives to them upon achieving the targets.
All Trade Officers vowed to extend full facilitation to Pakistani exporters and investors and committed to maintain close liaison with all trade and industry associations and chambers for efficient discharge of their duties. They assured that they would be always be willing to maintain close liaison with industry back at home and to bridge any gap between Pakistan and businesses of the countries of their posting by quick electronic exchange of information.
Senior Vice Chairman APTMA Kamran Arshad extended a vote of tanks to the visiting delegation at the end of the meeting and expressed the confidence that all officers being posted abroad will ensure to avail all trade and investment opportunities during their overseas posting.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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