KARACHI: Advisor to the Prime Minister on Institutional Reforms and Austerity Dr. Ishrat Hussain has stressed that Pakistan, instead of staying confined to exporting textiles only, should diversify its exports. He said that Pakistan should move towards the sunrise industries for which the global demand is expanding in double digits, otherwise we will remain stuck to $25 to $30 billion exports.
Speaking at the second session of the webinar, organized by the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) to develop national consensus on economic agenda, Ishrat Hussain said, “If we can capture just 1 percent of Chinese market by providing components, raw materials, intermediate goods to Chinese supply chain, we can get $23 billion exports to China which is very favorably inclined towards Pakistan and they have allowed a lot of room through the FTA.”
“We are not taking advantage of the Chinese market which is so close to us and we are only focused on chasing the European Union and United States where rates of growth are either negative or 1 to 2 percent while China and Asia are growing by 5 to 6 percent and China has become the largest single exporter in the world”, he added.
The PM’s Advisor further said, “We have to create incentive structure not only for five export-oriented sectors but also for any new sectors which are coming to start up the business and start up the new ventures and if they want to go for exports, we should try to provide them the financing, we should provide them tax rebates and we should give them the same treatment being given to five export-oriented sectors. We have to diversify our incentive structure in order to encourage the new comers, new industries, new businesses and startups particularly in the IT sector which has huge potential”.
Chairman BMG Zubair Motiwala requested the government and political parties to segregate politics and businesses.
“Stop politicizing businesses as whenever the businesses are politicized, they don’t bring fruits to anywhere. The economies that have made remarkable progress, have actually done this by completely segregating politics and businesses.”
He was of the opinion that frequent changes in policies kill the economy hence business, taxation, industrial, trade policies must be kept intact at least for a period of five years.
He observed that Pakistan was going through a very critical time as the second wave of COVID-19, which is more deadly, has intensified the sufferings for the people while the businesses are also not doing well. However, the remittances have been improving and the textile exports have also picked up pace.
