THE Federal Cabinet, which met in Islamabad on Tuesday for its regular meeting under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran Khan, took several important decisions including those to help mitigate brewing humanitarian crisis in brotherly Afghanistan, approval of the Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) 2020-25 and to increase the gas prices for captive power plants and leasing out of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation’s properties in Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir to private sector.
The measures approved by the Cabinet for providing relief to the people of Afghanistan are yet another manifestation of Pakistan’s deep solidarity with the war-torn country and would surely serve as a timely gesture of goodwill during challenging times.
Reports pouring in from different parts of Afghanistan speak of a grave situation due to lack of economic and financial opportunities for people of a country whose assets have callously been frozen by those claiming to be champions of humanitarian causes.
Latest reports speak of children dying due to hunger and poverty and families forced to sell their children for food but even these developments have not moved the influential countries of the world that are still continuing with their dangerous game plans for Afghanistan.
In this backdrop, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry, who briefed newsmen about proceedings and decisions of the cabinet meeting, echoed feelings of the people of Pakistan when he declared that Afghan people could not be left at the mercy of circumstances.
Keeping in view the difficulties of the Afghan people, Pakistan has decided to dispatch sufficient quantities of wheat and rice to Afghanistan to save the population there from starvation during harsh winter.
Pakistan has gone a step further in providing relief to Afghanistan by deciding to slash all taxes on exports from Afghanistan and hopefully this would help Kabul increase its exports to Pakistan and the proceeds would help overcome the economic challenges.
In fact, people of Pakistan are also eager to extend necessary assistance to their brethren and sisters in Afghanistan and now they would be able to contribute their share as the cabinet gave a formal approval to set up a special fund for the support of Afghan people in turbulent times.
It is also appreciable that apart from taking much-needed measures to provide relief to the Afghan people, Pakistan is also active on the political and diplomatic fronts to persuade other countries and the international public opinion to end discriminatory treatment to Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi have frequently been issuing appeals to the world community to discard its wait and see policy on Afghanistan in view of hardships being faced by its people besides raising the issue during bilateral meetings with their counterparts from other countries.
Now Pakistan has decided to host a conference of Foreign Ministers of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) next month to discuss ways and means for extending maximum support to Afghanistan at this critical juncture.
It would be worthwhile if Pakistan’s envoys in OIC countries are activated to make efforts for mobilization of support for the cause of the moot so that concrete and substantial pledges are made on the occasion.
A prompt and meaningful initiative by the OIC countries can help Afghanistan stand on its own feet in due course.
As for Strategic Trade Policy Framework, it focuses on geographical and product diversification, manufacturing cost reduction through tariff rationalization, pursuit of regional connectivity and “Look Africa” policy, enhancement of market access through the FTA/PTA and facilitation of logistics and tracking under TIR and enhancement of regional connectivity for access to the Central Asian Republics (CARS), Turkey and Iran, to Europe and Russia.
Effective implementation of this vision can surely help jack up exports but unfortunately the focus once again remains on traditional sectors like textile and apparel, leather, surgical instruments, sports goods, carpets, rice and cutlery that are eating up major chunks of all incentives but have shown reluctance or inability to invest in research and development and value addition and as a result they cannot meaningfully contribute to export growth.
A focus on IT and telecom, engineering goods and chemicals is the need of the hour to make a real difference.
The decision to increase the gas price of power plants during winter is understandable in view of the impending shortage but it would have economic consequences and an impact on inflation.
