PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed the formulation of a strategy aimed at doubling the country’s exports within the next five years. He has also instructed the Ministry of Commerce to compile this strategy in consultation with successful entrepreneurs and stakeholders. He underscored the importance of maximizing the utilization of the export sector, particularly in promoting IT, domestic products, textiles and other exceptional sectors, urging relevant stakeholders’ involvement in the process.
There can be no two opinions that increasing exports meaningfully is crucial for Pakistan’s sustained economic growth. Factors inhibiting export growth are known but unfortunately the country could not implement recommendations that were made by different studies, commissions and bodies in the past to put the country on the path of industrialization, creation of marketable surplus and aggressive facilitation of exporters. Apart from others, a World Bank report also identified key factors that hinder exports: high effective import tariff rates, limited availability of long-term financing for firms to expand export capacity, inadequate provision of market intelligence services for exporters and low productivity of Pakistani firms. But the most crucial is the need to expand the export capacity of the country and this requires attracting desired investment in different sectors of the economy, reducing the cost of doing business, improving infrastructure and preventing misuse of limited resources of the country by some greedy elements as was highlighted by a recent report, which indicated a loss of one billion rupee due to alleged fraudulent practices of a mobile phone manufacturer who imported components for export but no export of phones took place. Pakistan’s failure to maximize its exports is also deeply linked to our inability to diversify exports as our focus mainly remained on the textile sector, which always squeezed benefits but could not innovate and modernize as per demands of the global market. Now, IT offers an immense opportunity to jack up exports provided we formulate the right kinds of policies and implement them in letter and spirit. Luckily, in Jam Kamal Khan we have a Commerce Minister, who is known for hard work, innovation and delivery. It is hoped that in line with the directions of the Prime Minister, he would come up with a doable strategy for enhancing exports after input from all stakeholders, beginning with the New Trade Policy, which is expected to be finalized by the end of April.
