Ahmed Hassan Moughal, President ICCI said that the developed and fast growing economies like Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Turkey, Thailand and others have achieved phenomenal economic growth by promoting the exports of engineering products.

However, Pakistan was mostly depending on traditional products including textiles and few other products for exports.

But the share of textiles was on the decline in the global market while, the engineering goods constituted more than 60 percent of the world trade, which showed that if properly supported and patronized, Pakistan’s engineering industry could drive the economy towards fast growth by promoting exports of engineering goods.

He said that India’s exports of engineering goods during 2017-18 were over US$ 76 billion, but Pakistan’s exports of such goods during July-May 2017-18 were just around US$ 190 million, which showed our negligible performance in this sector.

He said that the share of Pakistan’s engineering industry in overall global exports remained stagnant at around 4 percent over the last more than 10 years despite the fact that a government’s report has estimated that given the right policy and support, the export potential of engineering products at US$ 10 billion by 2026-27.

He said the demand for domestic engineering goods accounted for 37 percent of the total import bill in 2015-16, which showed that the country has great potential for engineering goods in local market as well. He stressed that the need for bringing in more professionals in EDB to further strengthen it.