PEW calls for action against elements seen as damaging national interests

The Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Sunday criticised the architects of trade policy who preferred in interests of the industry of a certain area over the national interests.
It called for an action against those involved in drafting Strategic Trade Policy Framework 2015-18 which is full of flaws and has failed to promote the interests of business community of the country while preferring industry of Gujranwala Division.
The fall in exports has gained momentum as top government functionaries continue to make announcements ignoring practical steps, said Dr Murtaza Mughal, President PEW.
In a statement issued here today, he said that the trade policy is highly defective and inconsistent with the ground realities which have put a big question in the achievement of over-ambitious $35 billion export target by 2018.
He said that those who drafted the policy have ignored some important sectors while favoured some other sectors due to political concerns which amounts to playing with the future of the country facing.
The policy should be revisited and fixed while action should be taken against those who tried to gain mileage out of it on the cost of national interests, he said.
He said that trade deficit of the current fiscal can tough the mark of 25 billion dollars which must be taken seriously by the policymakers.
Falling exports and investment and sliding remittances have pushed trade deficit to 9.3 billion dollars in the first four months of the current fiscal and if the trend continues the deficit will touch mark of 27.9 billion dollars by the end of the current fiscal, he said.
The government has estimated the deficit for the ongoing fiscal to be 20.5 billion dollars which will be more than its projections as the deficit for the first four months is 22 percent more than the corresponding period, he added.
He said that exports dropped by 6.3 percent in the first four months while imports swelled by 8.6 percent due to absence of serious efforts to cut the import bill.
The import target of 45.2 billion will not manageable unless serious efforts are initiated as the economic corridor may jack up the bill by 11 percent, he said.
Dr Murtaza Mughal said that exports were above 24 billion dollars when the current government came to power, since then exports are dropping continuously.