Government asked to help private sector

Islamabad
The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has called upon the government to come forward and cooperate with private sector in product & market diversification and value addition of exportable products to realise the country’s actual export potential.
ICCI President Muzzamil Hussain Sabri said that despite possessing great potential to promote exports, Pakistan has missed its export targets for the third consecutive year, which should be a cause of concern for the policymakers. He said government had projected an export target of $27 billion for 2014-15, but could achieve actual exports of $24.2 billion. Similarly export target of $26.9 billion for 2013-14 was missed by over $1.8 billion while export target of 2012-13 was also missed by almost similar amount.
He said that one of the main reasons of missing export targets was that Pakistan’s export base was quite narrow and was concentrated in few low value added products like cotton and cotton manufactures, leather products, rice, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and sports goods as these products accounted for about 64 percent of country’s total exports for the past many years.