Don’t worry, says PM Imran Khan’s commerce adviser

ISLAMABAD: Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood said on Monday that corruption would go down with increasing utilisation of technology and minimising human interaction.

Inaugurating the two days consultative session on e-commerce policy implementation here in collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce and USAID, the PM’s adviser said that when people would work everything online it would bring down corruption as it would decrease interactions and help moving much faster. He said that there was another big change that he could see about the future of Pakistan and wanted to tell the youth that there was nothing to worry about our future.

“Don’t worry about the country as one final act together will help catch up whatever ground we have lost in the past,” he added. He said that with the enthusiasm of our youth, Pakistan could catch up its lost ground. He said that the young people were enthusiastic about launching of this policy and they removed all hurdles to come up with e-commerce policy.

Abdul Razak Dawood said that the people and brands that were investing into e-commerce could become the best. He said that he knew the implementation process took longer in Pakistan but hoped that the enthusiasm would keep moving towards the desired objectives. He said that another agenda on his priority was making efforts to increase exports. He said that there were different set of documents required for exports of goods and services. The exports of services, he said, stood at $5 billion and there was potential of quantum jump for increasing exports of services sector.

“Once Pakistan is able to remove hurdles on payment, it would help increase our exports,” he said, and added that new passing out graduates would make major role for increasing services sector exports. He said the e-commerce policy was approved by the cabinet few months back when the PM took decision that it was evolving document so its implementation must start now.

On this occasion, Additional Secretary Commerce Javed Akbar, USAID’s representative Ms Hasan Bano Burki, Mr Badr from P@sha group and Chairman NITB, were also present. The policy matrix of e-commerce implementation requires collaboration among different ministries and departments. Under policy initiatives, there has been need of enhancing cross border trade so the e-commerce policy provides enabling environment through establishment of single window for allowing re-export/re-shipment. Pakistan will have to adopt international best practices for taxation of digital goods. The code of conduct for e-commerce platforms will provide regulation on the conduct of business in order to prevent malpractices. The government will have to place e-procurement models in government procurement.