LAHORE: Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) will be purged of work shirkers to turn it into a corporate entity having close coordination and liaison with all the chambers of commerce in the country.
The TDAP Chief Executive Officer S.M. Muneer this assurance to business leaders here at Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday. The Authority, he added, would be revamped to ensure that no one dares to flout the rules. "I will purge corrupt elements and convert the entity from a bureaucratic institution to a true business organisation," he vowed.
S.M. Muneer said that all efforts were being put in place to make the TDAP a world class organization to facilitate the business community and educate the government on economic challenges. He said that being a businessman, he well understood problems of exporters and prompt actions would be taken to remove any hurdle to exports. Pakistan had to grab every export opportunity and TDAP would proactively remove hurdles impeding exports.
In response to a news report that gems and jewellery exports slumped from $1.6 billion to $279 million, he said that he held an immediate meeting with all stakeholders and came to know that the decline was because of ban on gold imports, as the imported gold was converted into jewellery and exported after this value addition. The ban on gold import was imposed because unscrupulous elements used to import unlimited quantity of gold and smuggled it to India, he added.
"On my intervention, the Finance Minister allowed the import of up to 10 kilogrammes of gold; a buyer of value-added jewelry would make payment for this. The entire gold in value-added form has to be exported in four months. Now the gems and jewelry exports will cross $1.5 billion again," he mentioned.
About Free Trade Agreements (FTA), he said that FTAs had problems regarding fixation of tariffs and the government should take onboard the business community, while finalising further international agreements.
S.M. Muneer said that a committee had also been constituted at the TDAP with private sectors participation to take full advantage of the GSP Plus (Generalised System of Preferences).
He urged the LCCI President to nominate LCCI members for the committee as GSP Plus was an important matter. Two years back, Expo Pakistan was a flop show because all the invitees were not genuine and relatives of officials or rulers.
Millions of rupee TDAP invested in their travel and lodging went down the drain. Expo Pakistan, he said, would again be held from October 23-26, 2014 at Karachi. "I have warned the officials that no nepotism will be tolerated this time," he declared.
About Commercial Attaches working abroad, the TDAP Chief said that majority of them were not performing up to the expectation, and we have to motivate them to work dedicatedly in supreme national interest.
The LCCI President Engineer Sohail Lashari sought the TDAP Chief's help for early release of sales tax refunds, suggesting that refunds process should be put on automation so that every businessman could be able to get due refund automatically.
Regional desks should be established at TDAP so that the official appointed there could be able to give right information to the exporters without any delay, he said, the TDAP would have to focus on exploring the new markets for Pakistani especially for value added items to find a way to diversify Pak products and export markets.
He said, the role of commercial sections of our foreign missions is very important in this connection, and they must keep on updating us about the latest development taking place there and also sending the trade queries.
He also called for an equal distribution of Export Development Fund within the various region of Pakistan, and Lahore region should be given equal opportunity to take advantage of this facility.
The LCCI President said that single country exhibitions should not be organized in such countries which were not the regular trading partners of Pakistan, as the exhibitors get discouraged due to poor response.
The TDAP must ensure the participation of leading exhibitors of Pakistan in such international exhibitions where our close competitors were displaying their products like India, China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Indonesia etc.
The trade delegations organized by TDAP should be prepared in close liaison with Chambers to ensure greater representation of private sector at international trading events.
The LCCI Senior Vice President Mian Tariq Misbah, VP Kashif Anwar, FPCCI Regional Chairman S.M. Naseer and large number of businessmen/exporters were also present.
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