After the required groundwork and thorough consul-tation with the relevant stakeholders, the govern-ment has approved the Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) 2020-24 to address the issue of trade deficit. For this purpose, the Framework has conceived a well-planned ‘Trade Diversification Policy’ to increase the domestic exports through various ways and means for ensuring sustainable economic growth of the country.
The main outline of this new policy document was to find out new markets in the world for domestic exports and move from traditional markets to non-traditional markets to increase domestic exports. The policy also carries geographical trade and prod-uct diversification for exploring new markets and introducing new export products to global markets.
The twin deficits of trade and the current account have led the government to re-organize its trade and special export policy with extreme diligence after long deliberations. According to the policy, the target of domestic exports has been set at $58 billion for the financial year 2020-24.
“The government has fully implemented the trade diversification policy. It has currently witnessed an increase in Pakistan’s product and geographical exports in the global market.” Advisor to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Raz-zak Dawood told APP on promotion of local exports in the international potential markets.
“During last 70 years, Pakistan’s exports had de-pended on traditional markets in ten countries with local textiles relying on only five markets of the United States, China, European Union, United Kingdom and Bangladesh,” he said.
“Now we are in the process of introducing new markets and new products in addition to traditional markets and traditional export products. In this re-gard the government has made great strides despite the tough time of Covid-19,” Razzak Dawood said.
Under the government’s ‘Trade Diversification Pol-icy’, ‘Look Africa campaign’ is its important policy component — running for the last three years to assess the untapped trading block. Currently, there is great demand of Pakistani tractors in African markets while mobile phones are exported to this region after the new smart mobile units were estab-lished in different cities. Various agreements were signed to enhance re-gional trade with Central Asian Countries (CARs) and their connectivity to Gwadar Port.
