Pakistan will undertake fresh trade initiatives with its regional and international trading partners to promote trade and boost economic growth in the country.
“It is high time for Pakistan to give primacy to trade and investment in its interaction with the world and focus on trade and investment reforms,” Engr Khurram Dastgir Khan, Federal Minister for Commerce, said in a meeting with officers of the ministry of commerce, academics and experts held to discuss the strategies for doubling Pakistani exports in the next few years.
The minister said in the modern economic history no country had shown meaningful economic growth without trade liberalisation and shifting focus from domestic trade to international trade. He referred to countries like China and India which had been able to sustain astonishingly high economic growth rates for years by specifically focusing on international trade which ignited a chain reaction of production in their domestic markets.
Bangladesh, Vietnam and several East Asian countries are more recent examples which reaped the dividends of similar reforms, he added. The minister was of the view that in trade liberalisation impediments were seen instantly but benefits lies in future which was not possible for everyone to comprehend.
