As the country's exports are constantly on declining trend, All Pakistan Business Forum (APBF) has asked the government to take business community on board in preparing policies to enhance exports so that fast widening trade deficit could be controlled.
APBF President Ibrahim Qureshi said the country's exports declined by 13.26% during the first eight months of the current fiscal year, losing around $2 billion. The exports declined by 4.73 % in February 2016 to $1.791 billion. He said that trade deficit was surged by 10.68% to 22.09 billion dollar in 2014-15 from 19.963 billion dollar in the preceding fiscal year, the record highest trade imbalance in last over 35 years.
APBF president said the delay in trade policy is also causing heavy losses to the business community amid acceleration in economic activities. Announcement of policy was due in July 2015, but later got postponed for some unknown reasons. The business community is still waiting for announcement. The expected policies could revive both domestic and foreign trade and may boost exports.
"The trade imbalance in favour of China is highly alarming. Free Trade Agreements signed with some of the countries appear to have been playing a major role for this imbalance..." He stated that Pakistan's exports have been stagnant at $24 billion for the last many years. Quoting the figures, he said that during last 30-year period (1980-2011), India's share of world exports improved from 0.43% to 1.7%; Bangladesh's from 0.04% to 0.14%; Malaysia's from 0.74% to 1.34% and Thailand's from 0.37% to 1.35%, but it is unfortunate that Pakistan's share remains stagnant at 0.15%.-PR
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