LAHORE      -  Director General of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) Saira Imdad Ali has said that value addition and introduction of new products could help boost Pakistan’s exports.  Talking to Acting President Faheem-ur-Rehman Saigal during her visit to Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry on Monday, she said Pakistan has a huge potential in various sectors such as fashion, sports goods, artificial leather, mangoes and salt.  DG TDAP said that India was exporting Pakistani pink salt to Italy. “We need to take measures to deal such issues”, she said.  Faheem-ur-Rehman Saigal said that Pakistan has to attain that stage when exports must exceed total imports for resolving the issue of current account deficit on long term basis. He said that there was need for a long-term integrated industrial and trade (import and export) strategy that encourages investment in all sectors especially in manufacturing sector. He said that there should be a special focus on development of export-clusters for technology intensive products (engineering, chemicals, value added textile and pharmaceutical). This would reward high value addition and discourage the low value addition.

“There is a dire need to diversify the exports in terms of markets as about 60 percent of Pakistan’s exports go to 10 countries. There is an ample potential of increasing exports to the other world markets where Pakistan is an under achiever”, he added. He said that TDAP should provide assistance in organizing trade fairs/exhibitions, especially in the markets like South America, Africa, Central Asian Republics and Russia, where the combined share of Pakistan exports was less than 10% of the total exports.