LAHORE: The newly-appointed Trade officers of Pakistan have sought assistance and cooperation from the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) to promote textile exports of the country and to explore investment potential in the sector.
In this regard, a 14-member delegation of officers selected from different occupational groups for posting in Pakistan missions abroad as consul generals, ministers, consular and attachés visited Aptma Lahore office on Monday.
Aptma Chairman Abdul Rahim Nasir, Aptma Northern Zone Chairman Hamid Zaman, Senior Vice Chairman Kamran Arshad and Secretary General North Raza Baqir welcomed the delegation.
Exchanging views, the trade and investment officers underlined the need to hold regular online meetings with the Aptma members so that they could jointly explore trade and investment opportunities and create strong linkages between the business communities of Pakistan and the host countries.
Speaking on the occasion, Aptma Chairman Nasir said that the textile sector alone represents 46 per cent of the total manufacturing and around 40 per cent of the total labour force.
The textile sector exports are likely to reach $20 billion by the close of the current financial year, compared with $15.4 billion registered in FY21, he said, adding that the performance of textile exports during May this year was highly recommendable, as it recorded an increase of 50 per cent over the last year. The value-added sector in textiles has also shown unprecedented growth.
For Nasir, the trade and investment officers serving the country’s missions in over 50 countries can play an important role to boost exports.
These officers should participate in all exhibitions and prepare reports for the trade associations and general exporters to help explore new markets and exploit trade opportunities, he suggested.
Hamid Zaman said that the trade officers should act vibrantly and explore all the major markets and commercial centres in the countries of their posting to help augment exports.
The trade missions abroad should facilitate the foreign buyers and investors during visa processing so that they could make business trips to Pakistan easily, he said and stressed on establishing trade facilitation centres across the globe.
Referring to the preferential Customs duty and tariffs being granted to the competitors, he said, the trade officers must lobby in their countries of posting for preferential Customs duties and tariffs for Pakistan so that more and more goods could be sent to all export destinations from Pakistan.
The CIS countries are very important as our goods can be exported through the land route he said and stressed that there is an urgency to further expand trade to this important region through Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
He was confident that Pakistan’s exports can easily be enhanced by giving targets to trade/commercial officers and granting incentives to them upon achieving the targets.
All the trade officers vowed to extend full facilitation to the Pakistani exporters and investors and to maintain close liaison with the trade and industry associations and chambers for efficient discharge of their duties.
They assured that they would always be willing to maintain close liaison with the industry back at home and to bridge any gap between Pakistan and the businesses of the countries of their posting by quick electronic exchange of information.
Kamran Arshad extended a vote of thanks to the visiting delegation at the end of the meeting and expressed the confidence that all officers will ensure to avail all trade and investment opportunities during their overseas postings.
