The businessmen of Southern Punjab has urged upon the government for uniform policy to promote textile and non-textile exports which are 40 percent of all exports. The government should not neglect the value-added industry of textiles.
President, Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI), Khawaja Jalaluddin Roomi, while lauding the decision of the government to revise trade policy to make it business-friendly, said the three-year policy should be improved on all the levels so that it could help exporters improve quality and quantity of the exports which were going down for some time.
He said Strategic Trade Policy Framework announced by the government was aimed at expanding exports to $35 billion within three years by improving export competitiveness but it had largely remained unimplemented. The most of the proposals of trade policy remained on paper bringing exports down to almost $20 billion which were $25 billion in 2013, he said.
He cited that now, the policy was being revised and all the stakeholders would also be taken on board before finalising the draft which would be submitted to the cabinet for the approval. Roomi said that most of the initiatives such as product design, technology upgrade, branding and certification failed in case of the textile sector and non-textile products due to friction and lack of support by the concerned authorities.