Islamabad:
The Permanent Committee of the National Assembly raised on Wednesday the question of whether the government’s plan to increase exports to $ 60 billion by 2029 in the current economic and industrial scenario was feasible.
“We believe that their objectives are not realistic,” said the president of the Committee when officials informed the panel on the country’s export strategy.
Speaking on the occasion, the member of the Shaist Pervaiz committee pointed out the raw decrease in cotton production, which once was 14 million bullets, but now has fallen to 5.5 million bullets. “Look at the current state of cotton production,” he lamented.
The officials defended their projections, citing factors such as Reko DIQ potential, Chinese investments and global commercial trends. They pointed out that several countries with zero cotton production still managed to export textiles worth 40 billion euros annually.
“That is exactly what we are saying. Show us exceptional performance,” said the president of the committee.
When expressing concern about Internet problems, the president of the committee asked how exports could grow when digital connectivity remained unstable in the services sector.
The officials of the Commercial Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) assured the committee that the tax rate and power problems would be addressed for the textile sector. However, they admitted that Pakistan was never witnessing a 60% increase in agricultural exports in a certain year.
TDAP officials reported that last year agricultural exports reached $ 1 billion and that bad commercial events contributed to export growth in multiple sectors.
They stressed that in the current fiscal year 124 international exhibitions exhibited Pakistani products, 11 commercial delegations visited Pakistan and 10 Pakistani commercial delegations participated in international commercial events.
Disienting the importance of commercial fairs, the member of the Gul Asghar Khan committee argued that “it doesn’t matter how many exhibitions we have, unless we solve the problems of merchants, nothing will change.”
Khan expressed his frustration due to the disconnection between official information sessions and land realities, saying “in the meetings he felt as if there was no country like Pakistan”, but regretted that tangible results had not been achieved to increase exports.
The Member of the FANA AIF committee said that in 2022 the total exports were $ 32 billion, but instead of increasing, they fell to $ 28 billion in 2023.
