Exporters facing brunt of high cost of doing business: PBIF

Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum's (PBIF) president Mian Zahid Hussain has said that contraction in the world markets and reduction in the global commodity index remained major exogenous factors that affected Pakistan exports. There were many items which Pakistan exported in greater volume but overall exports value still declined due to low prices. He said in the light of decline in exports till Dec 2017, it's impossible to meet the projected export targets.
Contrary to this, some export items experienced increase in their unit prices but the volumetric decline was more pronounced. These export items included tanned leather, leather gloves, pharmaceuticals, plastic materials, carpets and electric fans. It is an alarming situation for the export sector, He added.
The veteran business leader said the export growth is achieved either through expansion of existing industries, achieving economies of scale or through new export-oriented industries while product diversification is more an outcome of technology transfers and innovations. Unfortunately, Pakistan has not been successful in making noticeable headway in any of these areas despite several incoherent policies announced to incentivize investments and exports.
The performance of Pakistan's export industry is evident through its dwindling sector progress wherein almost every sector, negative export growth has been recorded in the past few years. However there is increase of 15 percent being recorded in exports in the first two months of 2018, which is evident of the benefit of 180 billion export packages and a hope for exports development of Pakistan in future.
He said Pakistani exporters are facing the brunt of high cost of doing business; particularly the elevated utilities' prices and wages, due to which Pakistan has lost its export competitiveness to a large extent. Pakistan's exports are suffering from low export diversification in terms of both markets and products. More than half of what Pakistan's manufactures is sent to just few markets.
He suggested that taxes and duties should be removed on import of industrial equipment and machinery in order to resolve the industry's problem with respect to modern equipment and take immediate steps to support the declining exports of the country. He proposed to implement latest machinery and equipment especially in the export oriented industries and to search new international markets with competitive advantages for the local products. With Government support industrialists can mark greatest success in the international markets.