Export boost a must to get out of debt crisis: Dawood

Prime Minister Advisor on Commerce, Industries and Production and Invest-ment, Abdul Razak Dawood Wed-nesday said the increase in exports is necessary to get the country out of debt crisis. He was addressing 5th Pharma Summit organised by Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations. Razak Dawood, who is giving different justifications at different forums for the decline in exports in January 2020, stated that Pakistan's growth for several years was based on trading focused on import of products, underinvoicing, earn money and move on. It was a good policy but consequences of that policy were that the country's debts went up, up and up. Pharma is one of the industries which have immense potential.

He said an economy's real strength is to move away from import trading growth strategy towards an export led strategy and import substitution and the incumbent government is following this policy ever since it came into office. Overall export base is too narrow with respect to sectors and within the sector because of products range.

The present government's policy is to move away from five traditional items and one of the industries the government is banking on is pharmaceutical industry. This industry is important however to some extent it faces more challenges.

"When we looked at the pharma sector I felt it is suffocating as it is overburdened by the government including over monitoring of this industry," he said, adding that wherever the government is present industrial growth suffers. He said, he would ask the government to reconsider its presence in pharma industry. The industry needs to have some breathing space.

Abdul Razak Dawood further stated that another key issue is that Pakistani industries do not get themselves registered for international recognized certification due to which these companies do not compete with products of other companies in other countries. He maintained that pharma industry was one of those industries. He also cited the example of Pakistan's fan industry, which does not market its products in other countries like USA and Europe and when they are asked as to the reasons for not exporting their products the answer is that they do not meet their safety standards. He said, international certification is necessary for exports to Europe and USA. He said, nobody is ready to accept Pakistani brands because they do not have the necessary certification.

He also mentioned the recently promoted Look Africa Policy, adding that the continent has 1.3 billion people and a $ 2.3 trillion GDP. He said it is a tremendous market.

Replying to a demand of PPMA that its R&D fund should be returned to the industry, Abdul Razak Dawood referred to the problems Commerce Ministry is facing with respect to Export Development Fund (EDF). He stated that R&D fund of pharma industry should be returned to it and suggested that pharma industry should come to Commerce Division to get funds from EDF for this purpose.

He said the pharma industry must serve 220 million people but at the same time also export its products as the country is in a debt crisis and the only to get out of that debt crisis is exports, exports and exports which is the economy's lifeline. He said strategy for 26 sectors has been completed. Abdul Razak Dawood said that in the forthcoming Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) which is being discussed right now, Pakistan is moving away from the textile sector as this sector cannot take Pakistan to $ 100 billion export mark. Pakistan has to have engineering, chemicals, IT and pharma. Former Chairman of the erstwhile Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) Tariq Ikram is engaged with the government in preparing the forthcoming STPF.

Ikram stated that in the past the governments continued dependence on textile sectors which is not in synch with international demand. He questioned why the pharma industry is not coming to Commerce Ministry to develop an export strategy and maintained that other sectors should also come to Commerce and develop their export strategy so that when he holds a meeting with Prime Minister on STPF these sectors are represented instead of just traditional sectors.

Ikram said tariff policy has now come to Commerce Ministry from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). He said previously, tariff was fixed by a group of officials in a small room but now it will be transparent adding that policy will be same for all sectors and not for any specific company or sector.

Advisor to the Prime Minister on National Health Dr Zafar Mirza said that the government has already completed work on National Medicine Policy aimed at reforming the pharmaceutical industry of the country which would be announced in the next two weeks. The Advisor said the government was committed to reforming the pharma sector and all bottlenecks were being removed in this regard. He also conceded that there were more difficulties due to presence of interest groups.

Dr Mirza said efforts were also being made to ensure that only best possible people run the regulatory authority. The advisor also urged the pharma sector to shun practice of unethical promotion of certain products.

Addressing the summit, other speakers stated that Pakistan was blessed with all types of natural resources and it was a pity that Pakistan was not transporting its dream into reality. They indicated that there was a worldwide annual demand of $17 trillion products and securing only one percent could make a big difference to our export revenue. Speakers stated that the good news is that Pakistan was already manufacturing what is demanded in the rest of the world.

Representatives from pharmaceutical industry also addressed the summit and emphasized the need to declare pharma an industry.

Dr Kaiser Waheed- Chairman Pharma Summit and Managing Director, Medisure praised the domestic pharma industry for its service to the nation with supply of medicines at cheaper prices. He criticised the government for fixing price of medicines unjustifiably and demanded the government acknowledge pharma sector as an industry and return the amount collected in the name of Research and Development so that the industry could spend the funds on research.

Earlier, in his opening remarks, Chairman PPMA Mian Zaka-ur-Rehman said that Pakistan has the strongest pharma industry in all Muslim countries and 98 per cent of country requirement was being met locally. The pharma sector has witnessed 20 per cent growth in the last two years he said and added that we could fulfill the requirement of the entire region as Allah Almighty blessed us with raw materials in use in the manufacture of medicines.

Professor Dr Zaheer-ud-Din Babar, Professor of Medicines and Healthcare at the University of Huddersfield, Chairman of the Summit, Dr Kaiser Waheed and notables of the Pakistani pharmaceutical industry Ali Akhai, Khalid Mahmood, Javed Gulam Mohammad, Zahid Saeed, Osman Khalid Waheed, Nusrat Munshi, Hamid Raza, Haroon Qassim, Dr Shahzad Khan, Dr Uzair Nagra and others also spoke on the occasion and highlighted the issue and challenges facing the pharma industries.