TDAP, SBP hold session on ACU for exporters

KARACHI: The Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) in collaboration with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) organised an awareness session for the exporters on Thursday, aimed at facilitating their import payments and transactions through the Asian Clearing Union (ACU).

The session, held at the TDAP headquarters in Karachi, was attended by more than 150 exporters from various sectors. The objective of the session was to inform the exporters about the initiatives taken by SBP to ease their foreign exchange operations and to address their queries and complaints.

The session covered topics such as SBP's Export Facilitation Desk, Non-Resident Rupee Accounts, and ACU mechanism. The speakers from SBP included Ahsin Waqas, Additional Director of Exchange Policy Department, and Obaid Bin Muslim, Deputy Director of Finance Department.

Waqas briefed the participants about the various initiatives launched by SBP to support the exporters, such as equity investment abroad, direct dispatch of documents, retention and utilization of foreign currency funds, issuance of debit cards and proceed realization certificates, facility of outward remittance to digital service providers, acquisition of services from abroad, and execution of transactions under Pakistan Single Window.

He also explained the functionality of Non-Resident Rupee Accounts, which allow non-residents to open rupee accounts for the purpose of import bill payment in Pakistani rupees. Muslim highlighted the benefits of using ACU mechanism for intra-regional transactions among the participating central banks.

He said that ACU is a multilateral payments arrangement that periodically settles payments for intra-regional transactions among the participating central banks. Pakistan is one of the founding members of ACU, which currently has nine members.