Staff Reporter Islamabad
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday directed the authorities concerned to take steps to exploit full potential of exports diversification in salt and phar-maceutical sectors.
Chairing a meeting of National Export Devel-opment Board, the prime minister said the govern-ment was focused on creating business-friendly environment in the country for further strengthening the economy and increasing employment opportuni-ties.
The prime minister emphasized that business community should adopt modern technologies to achieve maximum value addition.
The meeting was attended by Finance Minister Shaukat Tareen, Minister for Industries and Produc-tion Khusro Bakhtiar, Commerce Adviser Abdul Razak Dawood, Special Assistant to PM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan, SAPM on Political Communica-tion Dr Shahbaz Gill, CEO Drug Regulatory Au-thority of Pakistan (DRAP) Asim Rauf, representa-tives of pharmaceutical and salt sectors and senior officials.
The Prime Minister was briefed on the potential of diversification of exports, especially in salt and pharmaceutical sectors.
He was briefed that Pakistan was blessed with all types of salt available in the world including rock salt, sea salt and lake salt.
With a reserve size of 6.2 billion tons, Khewra Salt Mine is the second largest salt range in the world. Pakistan has also sea salt reserves along 1,050 kilometre long coastline.
Almost 60 percent of total 350 million tons global salt consumption is made by the chemical industry.
Pakistan’s current annual salt production is four million tons, whereas just 0.3 million tons are being exported each year.
The government of Balochistan and Hub Salt has initiated a new Solar Salt project to tap Pakistan’s huge potential in salt export.
This new Solar Salt Project will be the world’s largest salt works facility and will boost the salt exports by $400 million in 2023 and will continue to grow by $200 million per annum in subsequent years.
Moreover, it was told that currently Pakistan’s pharmaceutical exports are worth $275 million with a growth potential of $74.3 billion.
This growth potential can be materialised by investing in the machinery and equipment, streamlining the registra-tion process for Pakistani medicines, entering into joint ventures with reputed multinational companies and the appointment of sales and marketing teams in international markets for brand building.
