Commerce Advisor Abdul Razak Dawood Saturday said the government has released Rs17.5 billion of refunds to the export sectors, adding that the ministry's top priority is to boost SMEs to underpin the national economy.

Addressing the members of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Dawood said that the government plans to provide other export sectors with due refunds this January. Despite stiff competition in the world, he said, the country has posted an increase in exports.

He said Pakistan meat and poultry items have shown 54 percent increase in their exports while seafood 34 percent. He said that the poultry and meat sectors' exports continue to be shipped to Saudi Arabia and UAE while fisheries are mainly landing at Chinese ports. He said that the country's exports have grown both in terms of value and volume.

"We have a policy that there should not be any kind of duties on exports and hence, evolving a plan in a collaboration with the FBR," the advisor said, adding that the government intends to underpin the smaller industries in the country. He said that the government has to scale up number of products for duty drawback compared to the Indian policy of extending the facility on 1,000 products.

He pointed out that the government is evolving a plan to rationalize the duty structure. He said that the country has come out of its bad phase of economy, asserting that the "situation has now improved." He said that the country was faced with economic challenges for the past 12 months with a $2 billion monthly deficit.

"Critical decisions were taken to arrest the current account deficit," Dawood said, adding that forex reserves started growing over $18 billion from $11 billion. He said that the ministry is mulling over a comprehensive strategy with the help of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to introduce export incentives in Budget 2020-21.