Commerce Ministry is all set to seek "face to face" export growth proposals from the country's "disturbed" business community for the federal budget 2017-18 on Tuesday (today). According to provisional figures of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the country's trade deficit rose to $26.55 billion during July-April period of the current fiscal year (2016-17).
This exercise is being carried out in the absence of Finance Minister, Senator Ishaq Dar who has the final say in budget formulation and Commerce Minister Engineer Khurram Dastgir, who can only play a recommendatory role. Both are accompanying Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the One Belt One Road summit in Beijing and then onward to Hong Kong to attend an investment conference.
Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Revenue Haroon Akhtar Khan is expected to 'listen' to proposals put forth by the business community. Commerce Ministry in its letter to different Associations, Chambers of Commerce and Industry and other elected bodies, stated that the Ministry is organising a pre-budget seminar on "budget for export growth" aimed at consulting the stakeholders on the budgetary interventions for export growth. The proposals generated during the seminar will be considered for inclusion in the budge 2017-18, the last budget during the current tenure of the incumbent PML(N) government.
During the seminar, the heads/ high-level functionaries of the relevant organisations like Federal Board of Revenue, State Bank of Pakistan, National Tariff Commission, and Ministries of Finance, Power, Petroleum will be on the panel to directly respond to the participants' proposals. Each participant will have the opportunity to provide three proposals to the concerned officials.
Provisional trade data released by the PBS on Wednesday showed a decline of 2.29 per cent in exports during July-April 2017 with exports dipping to $16.918 billion from $17.314 billion for the same period of last fiscal year. Commerce Ministry argues that the three major factors causing a decline in exports notably energy crisis, refunds and currency overvaluation are not under its control and these issues have already been taken up at different forums including with the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Sources indicate that there is a strengthening impression - be it "right or wrong" -that the Commerce Minister as junior member of the cabinet does not enjoy required support from the top. It is usual for the Finance Ministry to organise pre-budget seminars to get proposals from the business community and investors but this time this exercise was not undertaken due to what informed sources maintain are the political and foreign commitments of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.
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