ISLAMABAD – PM Adviser on Commerce and Investment Razak Dawood Sundayexpressed the hope that by the last fiscal year 2023 of the currentgovernment, country’s exports would reach at $50 billion by following thepolicy of trade diversification in potential trade sectors and markets.
Export diversification, focus on non-traditional sectors and increasingexports to new markets, including the African market, would not onlyenhance the volume of the country’s exports, but would also help to achievethe export targets, the adviser told this during an exclusive interviewwith APP.
‘Make in Pakistan’ is the government’s top priority trade policy, whichaimed to introduce Pakistan’s traditional and non-traditional exportsectors and local products in the international trade market.
The adviser said that now the export of mobile and motorcycle from Pakistanwould be started within the same trade policy.
He said the export of these two products to the global market would usheran era of exporting engineering products from the country. He said that atpresent, the share of engineering goods exports in the global trade marketwas 51 per cent. He said that Pakistan now wanted to make a name for itselfin the world in non-traditional sectors, including engineering andpharmaceuticals. He informed the recently local Karachi based electricaland electronics goods company ‘INOVI TELECOM (PVT) LIMITED has justexported the first consignment of 5,500 “Made in Pakistan” 4G mobile phonesto the ‘Middle East’.
Razak Dawood said that this would be the beginning of an era of highvalue-added exports from Pakistan. He said that this also marks thebeginning of product diversification from our traditional to nontraditionalsectors. “I urge other mobile manufacturers in Pakistan to emulate thisexample and aggressively export their products,” he said.
The adviser said that in the recent past, when the United States, Secretaryof States for commerce visited Pakistan, he had identified in his tradefacilitation scheme Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) a number oftraditional trade products in which Pakistan had not yet shipped goods tothe US trade market. He added the US, GSP programme provides nonreciprocal,duty-free tariff treatment to certain products imported to the UnitedStates from designated Beneficiary Developing Countries (BDCs).
Most of these items came from Pakistan’s traditional commercial products,including textiles, which were now being worked on diligently.“Geographical trade diversification and search for new markets will furtherincrease our exports,” he said.
And in this regard, the government wanted to increase exports to Europe andthe United States by making its trade goods globally competitive, he added.
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Replying to a question, he said that now the manufacturing of motorcycleshad been started in Pakistan and with this Pakistan would start exportingup to 10,000 motorcycles which would be increased up to export of30,000,000 motorcycles annually in the coming years. He said that Japanesecompany ‘Honda’ has decided to set up its own manufacturing plant inPakistan, which will make Pakistan a hub of motorcycle manufacturing.
They will start exporting motorcycles worth $30 million from Pakistan incoming years.
Razak Dawood said that “we have decided to move towards import substitutionwhich will increase our exports and create more industries in the country.
Replying to another question, he said that Pakistan’s exports touched themark of over $25 billion over the past fiscal year 2020-21, and now thegovernment has set an export goal of $38.7 to 40 billion for the current FY2021-22.
The goal for the previous year was $ 25.3 billion for items and $6 billionfor the services sector.
He said that the country’s Information Technology (IT) exports had grown at47 per cent, which indicates that IT exports crossed the mark of $ 2billion.
