Seminar on STPF 2015-18: speakers for corrective measures to achieve export target

USAID Pakistan Regional Economic Integration Activity's (PREIA) party chief Donal Cotter has said on Thursday that his organisation is funding a five-year $14.4 million project for promotion of Pakistan's trade sector.
"We focus on collaboration with the public and private sector stakeholders here to improve trade and transit competitiveness that result in increased trade and transit volumes," he said speaking at a seminar on 'Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) 2015-2018' jointly organized by Ministry of Commerce (MoC), the USAID and Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) here at a local hotel. He said that the project was initiated on September 1, 2015 and would end by August 31, 2020.
Donal Cotter said that through technical assistance and capacity development, PREIA would also support enhanced regional economic integration with Pakistan's neighbours through increased access to international and regional markets. "PREIA consists of two key components, one improved business enabling environment and the second one is improved capacity to access regional markets," he said adding that achieving productive results through these components and principles required open engagement of private business organisations and stakeholders with public sector regulators to renew, in a mutually accountable manner, the policy framework and its regulatory management system to promote Pakistan's economic and business environments' competitiveness.
Asad Hyauddin, additional secretary MoC in his opening remarks said the government was committed to enhance the country's current export volume to $35 billion under the STPF 15- 2018 and for that sincere efforts were being made by the government. He lamented that Pakistan had not been able to enjoy strong trade relation with the neighbouring countries despite being a member of the World Trade Organisation. He said the country was facing so many challenges. "To achieve this huge export target is not easy but we have to do that. The things are now moving in a right direction," he said.
The secretary recalled that in 2011, blasts claimed several lives every month and as compared to that, now the situation was far much better. He added that Pakistanis are a resilient nation and that is our salient feature. President of the KCCI Younus Muhammad Bashir said that the challenging export target of $35 billion looked difficult as during fiscal year 2016, the exports target of $24 billion could not be achieved due to lack of specific plans in trade policy.
"In the absence of a workable plan of action, on ground result remains quite disappointing. Therefore, precise realistic targets with timelines should be set and the progress be monitored on periodic basis instead of general policy statements," he proposed. He further pointed out that the cost of business was roughly 9% higher in Pakistan as compared to other regional countries but no practical measures had been proposed in the policy to reduce the high cost of doing business.
"Another serious issue that requires attention is the refund claim of billions of rupees which remain stuck up at the Federal Board of Revenue, engendering severe liquidity crunch to export-oriented industries," he said proposing that there should be an automated mechanism where these refunds do not get stuck and traders do not face difficulty.
He said that despite securing GSP Plus status, Pakistani exports had failed to witness a decent upsurge. He stressed on the need to identify why we had not been able to fully benefit from this facility and accordingly, take corrective measures in order to improve presence of Pakistani goods in European Union". Raheela Tajwar, Director General (Trade Policy), MoC, Arsalan Ahmed, Director Trade Policy MoC, Tayyaba Batool, Senior Trade Policy and Research Specialist, MoC, representatives from State Bank, and TDAP were also present at the seminar.