FAISALABAD: Newly selected Trade & Investment Officers (TIOs) have been entrusted ambitious task to bridge widening import and export gap and in this connection they must take business community into confidence by exploiting their professional skills and expertise in line with the prevailing domestic, regional and global ground realities, said Mian Kashif Zia Chairman Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PHMA) North Zone.
He was addressing a meeting with TIO probationers who have been recruited and posted by the Ministry of Commerce. They are currently on a study tour of Faisalabad. During this meeting they had in depth discussions with the business community to understand the practical business related intricacies. They also discussed core issues in the prevailing domestic and international export environ.
While giving a brief introduction of PHMA, he said that it is an apex body of Knitwear & Hosiery Garments. “It has more than 2000 members comprising large, medium and small enterprises across the country,” he said and added that this sector is producing high value added products and contributing more than US$3.8 billion towards national exchequer. He said that PHMA also has ITS offices in Faisalabad, Lahore, Sialkot and Karachi.
Mian Kashif Zia congratulated the newly selected TIOs, pinning hopes that they would play their productive role in enhancing exports in addition to discouraging unnecessary imports.
He said that the main reason for widening gap between imports and export was the lack of communication between stakeholders and policy makers.
He said that we should reduce our dependence on foreign loans and increase value added textile exports in order to earn precious foreign exchange for the country as countries which are economically strong are not only prosperous internally but also respected in the international community.
Dr Khurram Tariq Former Chairman Central PHMA said that the private and public sectors have to play a collaborative role in the development of this country as the world has changed since COVID-19 with new opportunities of on line businesses. “We should take full advantage of these opportunities to stabilize our economy on sound footings”, he added.
In response to a question, he said that Pakistan has surplus power but the main problem is transmission. “World is heading towards value chain integration and hence newly selected TIOs must make space for Pakistani products in this value chain,” he added.
Nazish Sami, Director, Pakistan Institute of Trade and Development, Islamabad, said that the government has started to put the national economy in the right direction by appointing trade and commerce officers purely on merit basis.
She said that we have high expectations from the newly deployed officers and hope that they would come up to our expectations. She said that the purpose of this visit is to enhance the close liaison with the main stakeholders so that they could make workable and business friendly decisions while understanding the ground realities while performing their professional duties.
Allah Dad Tarar Director, Fazal-ur-Rehman Rao, Hafiz Kamran, Kashmala Javed from TDAP Faisalabad while from PHMA Shaheen Tabassum, Mubeen Alam, Hafiz Rashid Mahmood, Haji Saleem, Rana Altaf Ahmed, Mohsin Javed, Muhammad Zubair, Hafiz Akbar and other members also participated in the meeting in addition to the probationers.
On the occasion, Mian Kashif Zia, Chairman PHMA, presented an honorary shield to Madam Nazish Sami, Director, Pakistan Institute of Trade and Development.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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