Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal on Monday urged World Trade Organisation (WTO) to support Pakistan in capacity building in SME sector and trade facilitation for CPEC. Pakistan eyes $150 billion exports by 2025 under Vision-2025, which requires a paradigm shift in nature and composition of exports by adding value and introducing innovation in existing export regime. Ahsan Iqbal stated in a meeting with Director General WTO Roberto Azvedo, who called on him at Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform.
Federal Minister Commerce Khurram Dastagir Khan also attended the meeting. Ahsan Iqbal said the government's vision was to achieve sustainable economic growth by having major thrust on export sector, which was facing crisis due to myopic policies of the past.
He said WTO's support could be instrumental to realise the vision of high export growth. He pointed out the government was working on various initiatives to align the local trade and commerce sector with the international financial models to achieve higher exports. Ahsan Iqbal said that economic policies of the government turned national economy into vibrant and resilient economy in last two and half years after many economic indicators showed significant improvement.
He hoped that growth rate was expected to touch five percent by end of this financial year. He said power shortage issue had been tackled on priority by the present government, adding growth rate could witness a high jump once the energy shortage would be resolved by 2018. The Minister said the government was simultaneously working on major initiatives on economic integration and regional connectivity to turn Pakistan into a major trade and manufacturing hub in the region.
He mentioned China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) and KASA 1000- MGW as the major projects for economic integration and regional connectivity, which would enormously benefit Pakistan and region. Ahsan Iqbal and DG WTP also discussed to explore avenues of co-operation between Pakistan and WTO.
Ahsan Iqbal said Pakistan wanted to work in close collaboration with WTO and emphasised that the world organisation should focus on knowledge sharing with the developing nations to bring improvement in their trade sectors. He sought linkages between Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) and WTO Institute for knowledge sharing purposes. He also sought the support of WTO for Pakistan to realise its vision to keep moving on path of development and growth.
The Minister also emphasised that WTP should work towards removing Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) to facilitate the trade liberalisation in the region as Pakistan faces high non tariff barriers in the region. The DG WTO appreciated the economic turnaround Pakistan made in the last two and half years. He said WTO would like to be partner of Pakistan in future as part of its trade facilitation agenda.
Comments
Comments are closed.