We stand in gratitude to accept the honour and recognition being bestowed upon us as award winning exporters from Pakistan for the second consecutive year.
Last year we were recognised for our exports of non traditional products and, maintaining our record of excellent growth, this year we are the proud recipients of TWO AWARDS; an award for exports of non traditional products and the 2nd award for pharmaceutical exports.
This is the result of the hard work of our entire team, whose untiring and dedicated efforts have resulted in double the honor this year in form of two awards.
Royal Group, a pioneering export-oriented business house, was established almost 3 decades ago with a vision to capture the virgin markets of Africa and to introduce and develop exports of non traditional products from Pakistan.
30 years ago such exports to Africa were almost non-existent, year Royal Group has always preferred walking the unmarked path, rater than follow the crowd.
This path is always a challenging one, yet it is what we are being recognised for today; " A diversified non-traditional export oriented Group with a global presence, quality products and competitive pricing".
During the last few years, we have been concentrating towards establishing our BRABDS which are now household names in most of our export markets.
We now enjoy growing share of our sales from our various products which are our proudly and vigorously protected trademarks in Pakistan and internationally.
The sales of these products are well supported by promotional activities which range from P.O.S. materials to widely covered mass media programs, including radio and T.V. commercials.
We continuously strive to increase our sales as well as our product range. This year the Group launched a new division for the export of garments and textiles to Africa and was been rewarded with sales of almost 150 million in it's 1st year alone. Over the last fiscal year our total export sales have increased by 35% total export sales now stand at 550 million. We hope to achieve the one Billion Export Mark in the very near future.
We are indebted and obliged to both the Export Promotion Bureau and The Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry who have in a practical sense have sincerely supported the exporters to build our exports, especially non-traditional products and markets.
We are also very thankful to our bankers, Habib Bank AG Zurich, Union Bank Limited and NIB for their support to Royal Group, without which we could not have achieved this honour.
They dared to follow us where most others feared to go, and their faith has been constant and unwavering. The phenomenal growth we have enjoyed in the last few years would not have been possible without the steadfast support of these banks.
Our diversification and industrialisation also continues unabated. The Group plans to launch it's own 100% export oriented match industry in NWFP in the first quarter of the 2004-2005 fiscal. Currently we are amongst the top 3 match box exporters from Pakistan.
A pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Karachi is also planned to go on line in 2007, a joint venture was signed with our Chinese partners during the Presidential delegation led by General Pervaiz Musharraf to Beijing in October 2003.
The plant will cater to both the export as well as domestic market, in he tradition of providing quality products at competitive prices.
Our most sincere and special thanks to all our team members who have left no stone unturned to help us achieve this dream and whose hard efforts have resulted in the growth of the Group. The team which consists of more than Ninety professionals, energetic and highly competent individuals who are the Group's GREATEST asset, and we primarily owe our success to their hard work and sincere, dedicated efforts.
Finally we wish to express our thanks to Almighty Allah for bestowing upon us these honours, the President of Pakistan, General Pervaiz Musharraf, our Prime Minister, Chaudhry Shujaat, Mr Riaz A Tata the President of FPCCI and Mr Tariq Ikram chairman EPB for these two awards.
With this support we shall be even more motivated to continue to strive towards increasing Pakistan's exports of non-traditional products to non-traditional markets.
(The author is Chairperson Royal Group)