Pakistan’s export share in world trade declines to 0.13%: Daily Times

By Razi Syed

KARACHI: The global share of Pakistan in export market is 0.13 percent, which was 0.21 percent in 1999. The exports dropped from $19.1 billion in 2007-08 to $17.8 billion in 2008-09, imports dropped from $40.4 billion in 2007-08 to $34.9 bill in 2008-09, according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics. Agha Saiddain, Chairman Pakistan Tanners Association, said textile exports which are 54 percent of our total exports dropped from $10.6 billion to $9.60 billion, but alarming thing is that export of non-textile manufactured items has gone down from an already low figure of $5.83 billion in 2007-08 to $3.12 billion in 2008-09. Agha said on the other hand non-textile exports have gone up in all our competing countries specially in Asia, including China, India, Malaysia, etc.

It would have been better to announce a trade policy for the year 2009-10 with short-term measure with a five-year strategic policy framework. Short-term measures are required to face the challenges of global recession and abnormal security situation of Pakistan. The trade policy is silent about the road map as how to achieve these objectives and the major causes of back drop of trade policy are identified by the MOC as energy crises, low productivity and poor innovation, low value addition, lack of foreign investment, tax laws, lack of product and market diversification, he added. He said, these terms look very impressive but what practical measures have been suggested to overcome these weaknesses are unidentified”.

To overcome these weakness the government has come up with new creative idea under its name STPF (strategic trade policy framework) with fundamental principles laid down as growth with equity, creating opportunities for gainful employment, sound macro-economic frame work for poverty eradication, environmental protection, HR development, targeting private sector as engine of growth, focus on small agriculture. The government has been working on strategies of various industries such as leather industry where SWOG (strategy working group) has already finalised their strategy paper and recommendations forwarded to the authorities.

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