Federal Minister for Commerce Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan has said that the Ministry of Commerce in collaboration with other government organisations have initiated the reforms programme in a bid to double the country's exports. "In this regard reforms would be introduced in various areas including trade infrastructure, tariff system, subsidy and mechanism of international trade marketing", the Commerce Minister said in a statement issued here on Tuesday.
He further said that the Commerce Ministry was evolving a strategy to enhance exports in non-traditional sectors including pharmaceutical, gems and jewellery, agriculture products, engineering and chemicals sectors. Furthermore, he said that the ministry was also engaged in exploring non-traditional trade markets abroad. The minister said that for early solution of trader's issues, the institutes concerned are being consulted to remove hurdles being faced by the businessmen.
He was of the view that after six months of implementation of GSP Plus status, positive results are coming on the surface. "Despite challenges of terrorism and gas and energy crisis, the improvement in the country's trade as compared to the last year is encouraging", he added. Earlier, while giving briefing to the minister, S.M. Muneer, Chief Executive Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TAP) informed him that the country's exports were increased from US $24.5 billion in the year 2012-13 to $25.2 billion during the fiscal year 2013-14. He further informed that during this period the trade deficit witnessed decrease of 2.5 percent.