Conference in Nairobi on January 30-31: Government seeks to boost exports through 'Look Africa policy' initiative

Pakistan-Africa Trade development conference scheduled for 30-31 January in Nairobi, Kenya will be sponsored by Ministry of Commerce as part of its "Look Africa Policy" to achieve geographical diversification of exports.

This was stated by Adviser to the Prime Minister for Commerce, Textile, Industry & Production, and Investment, Abdul Razak Dawood while speaking exclusively to Business Recorder.

Dawood further stated that he will be presenting a "strategic export development framework" to the prime minister which will open new avenues for enhancement of Pakistan's trade with Africa.

He further stated, "Our trade policy will focus on pursuing an export-led growth strategy, including facilitating exporters; while every country has its own strategy but in Pakistan none of the weightage of taxes or duties must be imposed on exports."

"Incentives must be provided to the value-added sectors and as far as product diversification is concerned we must diversify our products away from the 5 export sectors. It doesn't mean we should forget them, we should encourage them but we have to diversify by giving other than the 5 export sectors more long term finance facilities (LTFF) and export refinance scheme (ERS)," Dawood added.

Tariff rationalization is very important if industrial growth is the target and the government is regularly meeting with each sector, sector by sector, before a strategy for tariff rationalization will be finalized, Dawoos stated.

Replying to a question regarding e-commerce policy, he said the cabinet has approved the e-commerce policy under which we are placing far greater focus on the services side which includes arranging for payments, ease of payments through the IT sector and services in general.

Dawood expressed the hope that once Ministry of Commerce finalizes the strategy the Ministry of Information Technology will come up with a plan to implement it together with the State Bank of Pakistan, providing guidance on methodology.

"All this time we have been concentrating on products; things we produced, we have not concentrated on services," he said adding that "now we are looking at services, including information technology (IT), insurance, consultancy, engineering services, shipping etc."

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