Chairman Regional Standing Committee on Horticulture Exports of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) Ahmad Jawad proposed that if government wishes to enhance exports in a short period of time then they should focus on horticulture, rice, Halal meat products, gems and jewellery and cement sector.
He criticised the government for lacking result-oriented policies to enhance exports and its reliance on borrowing in financial matter, as the government had once again issued Sukuk bonds to borrow $1 billion from international market in order to offset pressure on its balance of payments. Jawad said that repayments liabilities were fast approaching and foreign earnings especially exports were shrinking but government, instead of providing incentives to the exporters to improve foreign exchange, was depending only on debts and taxes.
It is unfortunate that as soon as the IMF loan programme was going to conclude another loan in the form of Sukuk bonds had been issued at a return of five percent. He said "the government has no time to think how Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh increased their exports with meagre resource as compared to Pakistan".
"Despite the fact we claim Pakistan is rich in resources "we have agricultural land with surplus crops of cotton, rice, wheat, fruits and many other things and livestock sector. We also claim to have one of the biggest reserves of coal deposits in Thar and in Balochistan; we have gold and copper mines."
He said "our export base is quite narrow as well with a few items being exported to even fewer countries. However, key factors responsible for the decline in exports, as per Jawad's understanding, include energy crisis, lagging competitiveness, out-dated machinery, weak contract enforcement, inadequate investment growth and constraints in the regional markets. Vice President FPCCI, Riaz Khattak said the government had to take responsibility and formulate new policies to regain the lost trust and confidence of the export industry.
He said exporters had already diversified into the retail and real estate sector as they were unable to survive under current outdated policies. Therefore, the time to act is now otherwise there might not be an export industry left to revive.
Khattak said when the Minister of Commerce Khurram Dastgir Khan said that both internal and external factors were responsible for Pakistan's abysmal exports situation; but he failed to emphasise on two things: the fact that it is more to do with internal policies and negligence and the actual severity of the problem.
"Yes, the slowdown in the Chinese economy has caused a global lull with many developing export-based countries like Brazil and Australia feeling the squeeze but in Pakistan's case, it is a small part of a much serious problem. "Pakistan's exports have fallen by 15.4 percent in the last three years from $24.58 billion in 2012-13 to $20.8 billion in 2015-16.
"Another important figure that the commerce minister and TDAP failed to highlight is the embarrassingly low number of 7.3 percent that exports contribute to our GDP, compared to Vietnam's 90 percent and Bangladesh's quickly increasing 17 percent," Khattak added.
FPCCI VP further said in 2016 Global Hunger Index, Pakistan ranked 107 out of 118 developing states, worst in South Asia but government claims of economic wellbeing.
Comments
Comments are closed.