Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum's (PBIF) president Mian Zahid Hussain has underscored the need for evolving a mechanism whereby traders of both China and Pakistan could issue invoices, cheques and letter of credits (LCs) in the currencies of their respective countries without accounting for the US dollar's impact.
"Such an arrangement will not only stimulate growth within the country and the region, but will also help strengthen Pak rupee and contain balance of payment," he added. Mian Zahid Hussain said that trading in local currencies will be more appropriate and beneficial for both the countries as by doing so reliance on greenback will be minimised, besides it will also help in curbing negative balance of trade, which currently stands at US $1.3 billion.
Elaborating, he said that Pakistan last year paid around US $7.5bn to China against the import of goods, while the goods exported to China amounted to US $2.6bn. "Had there been swapping arrangements between Pakistan and China, this shortfall of US $4.9bn would have been bridged easily, instead of getting it financed from the IMF," he opined. The PBIF chief said that with a currency swapping arrangement between China and Pakistan, not only both the countries will be on win-win position, but Pakistan will have an advantage over China due to its weak currency.
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