PM's Advisor urges diversification in export goods.

KARACHI -- Advisor to Prime Minister on Institutional Reforms and Austerity, Dr. Ishrat Hussain on Friday stressed the need for diversification in export goods instead of confined to traditional export sectors like textiles.

He was speaking at the second session of webinar organized by Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry to develop national consensus on economic agenda, at Karachi Chamber, said KCCI statement.

The Advisor urged the business community to explore new potential sectors to increase exports as the global demand is expanding very fast. Otherwise, he cautioned, the country's exports would remain stuck up to $ 25 to $ 30 billion.

'If we can capture just one percent of Chinese market by providing components, raw materials, intermediate goods to Chinese supply chain, we can do $ 23 billion exports to China which is very favorably inclined towards Pakistan. They have allowed a lot of room through the FTA,' he articulated.

He regretted that Pakistan could not take due advantage of Chinese market which was so close to us. We are only focused on chasing the European Union and United States where rates of growth are either negative or 1 to 2 percent while China and Asia are growing by 5 to 6 percent, and China has become the largest single exporter in the world.

PM's Advisor said incentives structure not only for five export-oriented sectors but also for new emerging sectors.

He pointed out that Pakistan had a very low investment and very low saving rates as 15 percent of investment can only result in 3 to 4 percent of growth rate. But, if the investment rate went to 20 percent, the growth rate would improve by 5 percent.

' We are a consumption led economy and no consumption led economy would ever be able to grow hence we have focus on savings and investment,' he said quoting the example of China where saving rate was 50 percent of income of the people and investment rate was 45 percent. They were actually exporting capital to rest of the world including the United States.

Pakistani industries must focus on improving their productively level which was very low as compared to other countries around the world. This also caused high cost of doing business and making Pakistani goods in-competitive.

Dr. Ishrat Hussain said that Prime Minister was very keen to listen and resolve the problems being faced by the trade and industrial community, who had frequent meetings with the business community representatives to listen to their...

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