ISLAMABAD       -          Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce, Industries and Investment, Abdul Razak Dawood has said that ministry of commerce is actively working to encourage exports and discourage imports.

Successive governments have failed to boost export led growth and emphasised on imports which led to piling up debt.  Our strategy is to seek export led growth followed by import substitution. Textile alone cannot help to achieve $100b mark in exports.

He was addressing in export summit organized by pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan in Islamabad in order to strategize growth in exports in general and in pharmaceutical in particular.

Dawood said that Pharmaceutical industry was overburdened by government and non-government factors which led to suffocation in the industry. Ministry of commerce was working on a strategic framework to boost exports in 26 sectors. Strategy was based on three baskets of factors namely: tariffs, enablers and impediments,

He said. Work on strategic exports framework was complete and would be incorporated in the upcoming budget. After that, there would be no need to announce sector specific incentives.

Past governments relied on textile sector only in order to boost exports. He added that it was sad to state that Pakistan’s textile sector was not at par with global market demand. Moreover, Pakistani industries failed to register themselves with global certification institutions. Subsequently, Pakistani products failed to access global markets. He mentioned Pakistan’s fan and pharmaceutical industries in particular in this regard.

Advisor, while presenting the outline of the strategic exports framework, expressed that their target was to achieve $100b exports. While addressing the summit, speakers highlighted that Pakistan was blessed with all types of natural resources and it was pity that Pakistan was not transporting dream into reality.

They indicated that there was a worldwide demand of $17 trillion products annually while securing only one percent could do a big deference.

Speakers expressed that good news was that Pakistan was already manufacturing in the market of $14 trillion. Representatives from pharmaceutical industry also addressed the summit and emphasised to declare pharma as an industry.