Islamabad : The Senate Standing Committee on Textiles has directed the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) to explore new international markets to enhance export volume of the country. “African countries should be the main focus for the country’s export, particularly in textile sector, as Africa can be a good market for Pakistani products,” said Gul Muhammad Lot, Chairman of the committee.
The TDAP representative informed the committee that they had already shifted the focus from the United States and Europe to Asian countries and in the coming months “we will also enter into the South American countries such as Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentine”.
The committee met to discuss various issues, including the outcome of arranging international exhibitions on textile and expenditures incurred and positive or negative effects of granting the most favoured nation (MFN) status to India. The committee expressed its concerns over the TDAP’s selected venues of exhibitions and also its non-coordination with the relevant Ministry of Textiles.
The committee expressed its concern that the TDAP is arranging international exhibitions in the countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom where the outcome is not satisfactory in keeping view the expenditures incurred for arranging the exhibitions. Senator LT Gen Javed Ashraf (Retd) said that the ministry should get hold of the TDAP and the authority must not take independent decisions of arranging international exhibitions. It was decided by the committee that henceforth, all the arrangements for global exhibitions would be made in consultation with the Textile Ministry.
The committee was informed that during 2010/11, the country exported textile goods worth $13.528 billion with the increase of 34 percent against last years’ export of $10.27 billion. The committee was also informed that although the increase in exports was mainly due to increase in cotton prices in the world market, but the volume of some value-added products witnessed increase during the period under review.
Regarding the MFN status to India, the committee was informed that the Ministry of Commerce is in the process of consulting with stakeholders, including various trade institutions and government officials to make lists of negative and positive items.
