Pakistan's economy is worth 150 billion dollars, hence there is a need to capture at least one per cent of the world trade. This was stated by former Governor of State Bank Dr Ishrat Hussain, while addressing the participants of a seminar on "mainstreaming development issues in Pakistan's trade policies," jointly organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Foreign Trade Institute of Pakistan here on Saturday.
Dr Ishrat said that trade had become a powerful means for a country's economic and social development. By increasing its share in the +world trade, Pakistan could enhance its trade volume with China up to 12 billion dollars, he added. Referring to the annual report of the FTIP, he said that it provided a proof that trade and development were interlinked.
Dr Sohail Malik of Innovative Development Strategy (Pvt) Limited, speaking on the occasion, asked the government to review the entire policy framework to integrate different aspects of trade, development and investment, and called for a clear national strategy.
He said that there was a need to bridge the gap between policies and their implementation. He regretted that the existing trade policy had become hostage to fiscal and monitoring space, while the state of domestic commerce was extremely poor.
He stressed the need for promoting knowledge-based education to excel in engineering and technology to earn the fruits of comparative advantages, adding that the production cycle changes with reaping of the benefits of comparative advantage.
He advised Pakistanis to move in information technology (IT) direction like Indians and get benefit from services sector, which was 53 percent of our economy. He lamented that even Vietnam and other so many countries had made rapid progress than to Pakistan by properly utilising their potentials.
He urged Pakistan to get united and work for the development of the country, lamenting that the mindset of not wishing to compete and lack of confidence as two main problems of Pakistanis. He urged host organisations to concentrate on empirical research.
Speaking next, Director General of Foreign Trade Institute of Pakistan Dr Abid Suleri observed that Nairobi-based United Nations Conference on Trade and Development had no powers to implement its decisions, and said Pakistan, along with other developing countries, should adopt a collective position instead of symbolic position in the UNCTAD.
He said that our national policies needed genuine reassessment, development of competitiveness and parallel governance mechanisms to support the high growth. Dr Safdar Sohail stressed the need for evolving effective co-ordination and implementation mechanisms to use the trade policy for the development of the country.
Dr Sajjad Akhtar of the Centre for Research on Poverty Reduction and Income, urged Pakistan to invest in competitiveness, adopt strategic trade policies, restore a focus on agriculture, combat joblessness, prepare a new tax regime, maintain stable exchange rates, persist with multilateralism and co-operation with neighbours to mainstream the development with the trade policy of Pakistan.
KASB Bank Chairman H. U. Baig said that growth had to be supported by other policies and mechanisms, in addition to a strong implementation and co-ordination mechanism in place for policies, and also suggested formation of a cabinet co-ordination committee for this purpose.
Syed Hasan Javed of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Syed Irtiqa Ahmed Zaidi of Ministry of Commerce shared Pakistan's perspective and positions in the United Nations Conference on Development (UNCTAD), a UN forum which was formed 44 years ago, to debate the trade and development related issues of member countries.
Teepu Sultan of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) differed with the perception whether there existed any nexus between trade and development, adding that the role of UNCTAD should be the capacity building, human development and food security of the member countries than to support for export-oriented policies.
Other experts called Pakistan to review its domestic trade policy framework to integrate different aspects in it and also bridge the gap between policy and implementation to capitalise its comparative advantages in the era of competitiveness under globalisation.