Declining exports: TDAP working to reverse the drift

By Tanveer Ahmed

KARACHI: The Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) is working on ‘Export Turnaround Strategy’ to reverse the declining trend in country’s exports, Daily Times learnt on Tuesday.

According to well-placed sources in TDAP, the dismal performance of exports during the current fiscal year has been a cause of great concern for the economic managers, who earlier projected substantial growth in the export by raising its target as compared to last year.

However, the export performance so far during the current financial year is not up to the mark, which evoked the realisation to take immediate short-term measures for the export growth.

Sources said under this strategy, which is currently in the planning phase and is likely to be implemented soon, various measures are being chalked out to bring visible improvement in the country’s export sector.

Under this plan, various markets are being identified which has the major export potential for the Pakistani products but the performance of the export did not match the actual potential.

Also, the big USA and European markets would also be reviewed in order to find out what is blocking the penetration of our exports in these two major markets, sources said, adding that non-traditional markets would also be targeted under this strategy to explore new markets for the local products.

Besides, trade delegations would also be sent for the export marketing in various parts of the world and maximum participation of private sector would be ensured in these delegations.

It is pertinent to mention that country’s exports during the first half of the current financial year posted just 3.67 percent growth to $8.715 billion over $8.407 billion in the corresponding period of last year. Whereas to meet the export target of $19.2 billion of current fiscal, exports need to register average 18 percent growth each month, which appears to be missed as export growth remained between three to five percent so far during the current year.

The export performance in December was even worst, as there was huge decline of 12 percent over the same month of previous year, which has been attributed to large-scale violence and chaos across the country following the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Exporters commenting on TDAP’s initiative termed it a ‘foolish step’ as the authority is just bent upon giving new policies but practically doing nothing for the country’s export sector.

“This can be beneficial for the officials who would be filling the pockets on account of TDAP while visiting abroad but it will be useless for the export sector in the present scenario,” a dejected textile industrialist lamented.

Exporters said instead of coming with such sort of impractical ideas, TDAP should do something substantive for the industry as export sector is currently facing crises like high prices of gas and other utilities, load shedding and above all the law and order situation, which disrupted the industry adversely.

“What will you gain by marketing the products abroad when the country has no export surplus in the present conditions,” Mushtaq Vohra, a leading textile exporter and former office bearer of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) commented.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...6-1-2008_pg5_10

For exports to grow, you need growth in the manufacturing sector. Since the manufacturing sector is in turmoil due to high input costs, bad law&order, lack of electricity, and political uncertainty, I wouldnt be surprised if we went into a recession.