Newly announced trade policy to serve as a booster to export industry

RAWALPINDI, March 25: The Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) President Mian Humayun Parvez has expressed hope that the newly announced trade policy will serve as a booster to the existing export industry. In a statement he said that it is encouraging that the government targeted the key markets like Iran, China, Afghanistan and European Union.
He said that despite immense potential, the South & Central Asia regions are amongst the least integrated regions of the world. The intra-regional trade is less than 5% primarily caused by high costs due to low infrastructure facilities, energy crisis, missing links and lack of transit agreements, he added. If we improved our trade relations with Afghanistan we will easily jump into central Asian countries. He said that government has set the export target of $35 billion by 2018 which is quite achievable if we successfully completed our energy projects in time. He urged on government to fulfill its commitment to release refunds claims of exporters by March 31.
He said that pharmaceutical products, surgical goods/medical instruments, footwear, furniture, handicraft, gems and some food products’ exports have also shown significant improvement and government should facilitate exporters in import of machinery for the given sectors. -PR