Federal Minister for Commerce Pervaiz Malik has assured the rice exporters for their interests, saying that the government is reviewing Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with different countries and rice exporters' issues will be considered also while revising these agreements. The Minister was speaking at the 9th Export Trophy function arranged by the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) here the other day.
REAP Chairman Sami Ullah Naeem, Pir Nazim Hussain Shah, Shahzad Ali Malik and a large number of rice exporters from across the country were present on this occasion. He told that the government has also constituted a committee to review the cost of doing business for different industrial sectors so as to develop some mechanism for bringing it down enabling our export oriented industry to be competitive in the international market. He said that the input cost of rice exporters will also be reviewed and facilitated so as it can compete with other rice exporting countries.
The Minister said that the committee reviewing cost of doing business will present a formula to bring it down for Pakistani industry by either proposing rebate, bringing down utility charges or any other concession. He assured that the government was committed to address this issue properly and come up with a workable formula.
He said that we had given sufficient time to cotton and textile sectors and would also like to sit with rice exporters to boost this second biggest export sector of the country. He said that the government was ready to help the rice exporters in branding and assist them in participating in international exhibitions.
Responding to a demand of declaring rice export sector as Industry, he showed his willingness but asked the exporters to give him solid references and proposal in this regard. He admitted that the business community had always supported the PML-N and it has a right on the government. He said that it is the time that government also support the businessmen and industrialists. He said that the government would come up their expectations.
He said that though export sector had shown a 10 percent increase during last four months as compared and rice sector alone showed 16 percent increase. However, he said that we have to do more. Earlier REAP Chairman Sami Ullah Naeem in his address asked the government for giving a support package to the rice exporting sector and claimed that if given a chance and their proposal is expected it can jump to from US $ 2 billion dollars to $2.5 billion dollar within a year.
He asked for including rice sector in PM's 300 billion package announced for different five exporting sectors. He asked for giving rice sector status of industry, matching grants for listing fee of Pakistani brands at international stores, special export rebate to different segments such as basmati, non-basmati and brown rice exporters and for launching a campaign to create awareness about Pakistani rice which meet the international phytosanitary and sanitary standards.