Observer Report
Islamabad
Advisor to the Prime Minister on Commerce, Abdul Razak Dawood has said that the country’s exports target of $25 billion could not be achieved due to the ongoing situation of lockdown in the country and it could decline to more or less to $ 22 billion.
The exports decreased in April by 50 percent and home remittances also declined in this situation, Abdul Razzak Dwaood said in an interview with Voice of America (VOA) here.
To a question he said Pakistan could get benefits from low oil prices in current evolving situation in international market and there would be no larger impact of Current Account Deficit (CoD) because of decline in petroleum prices.
He also vowed for opening the industrial sector in coming months to provide opportunity to the local exporters to get more benefits in current scenario and major shift in international trade market. He urged the exporters to get orders freely from all countries including textile industry to tap the new opportunities in the world market. Replying to a question on impact of current situation on country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), he forecast that it would contract by 0.5 percent during the current fiscal year.
He said that even in recent challenging situation Pakistan has opened various sectors including information Technology and sect vices sectors, which attracted the world to the Pakistan product in these sectors.
Toa question on textile sector export, he said that Pakistan was receiving big orders of face masks and sanitizers.
“We have also received huge demand of Hydroxychloroquine and Pakistan has exported raw material to Germany and Turkey and 1000,000 tablets to Saudi Arabia,” he added.
Replying to another question on United States-Pakistan Trade dialogue, he said that Pakistan wanted access in potential US market for this “We demanded the US government to eliminate the travel restriction for Pakistan to increase bilateral trade.” He said that during the visit of Prime Minster Imran Khan, both the countries were agreed to start dialogue for searching the new avenues for bilateral trade in US and Pakistan.
The adviser said that Pakistan also demanded to the US and other international brands and companies to open their offices in Pakistan for bringing foreign investment in the country. He said that Pakistan wanted access in Textile, Informati9on Technology and Services sectors in potential US market to increase our exports.
Meanwhile, the Tariff Policy Board on Thursday decided to rationalize the current tariff regime by analyzing the impact assessment of different tariff relief measures taken in the previous fiscal years. The Board, which met here with Advisor to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood, agreed that it and its sub-committee would holdd multiple sessions to finalize the proposals well in time, a Ministry Commerce press release said.
The meeting discussed the economic impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and deliberated upon ways and means to avert the financial losses to the businesses.
Speaking on the occasion, the Commerce Advisor said due to the negative impact of COVID-19 emergency on the economy, it was imperative to devise policies for growth and progress of all economic sectors. A win-win situation for everyone, including the government exchequer, might be created.
