‘Initiatives to facilitate traders aimed at reducing impacts of COVID-19’

Islamabad : Robina Ather, Chairperson, National Tariff Commission, has said that the government took several policy initiatives to provide relief to trade sector to reduce the impacts of COVID-19.

Ms Ather was sharing her views at online public private dialogue on ‘How evidence on COVID-19 is being used to support the trade sector?’ organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute, here Wednesday.

Ms Ather observed that these initiatives were based on past learning and evidence. However, the capacity of using research and evidence in the public sector needs to be enhanced for more impactful measures, she said adding that we need to develop in-house capacity for evidence-use but the lack of finance and funding for such measures was a major constrain. She said that the greater political will is need of the hour to support capacity building of the government. Moreover, efforts are required for closer interaction between evidence users and producers, she continued.

Ms Claire Hutchings, Team Leader, SEDI programme, Oxford Policy Management, UK, was of the view that we need to align research and evaluation with the problems being faced by policy makers. Likewise, the policy makers should be asked about what evidence they require and then build research programme around this. During the pandemic time, there is a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity all around and thus it is important to understand the changing questions of decision-makers and contextualise evidence.

Gonzalo Varela, Senior Economist, The World Bank, informed the participants that data is there but it is not made available to the right users. A fresh census of manufacturing industries is required for more useful research and policy decisions. He said that we cannot confuse lobbying power with reality and thus, need to be careful in selecting stakeholders who benefit from trade promotion schemes.

Dr Vaqar Ahmed, Joint Executive Director, SDPI, while moderating the dialogue, said that there is a gradual emergence of evidence explaining how the pandemic impacted economic growth and trade. However, it is not clear at this point that how the public sector decision-makers are using this recent evidence, he added.

He said that we also need to know what type of evidence proved most useful during the first and second waves of Covid-19 and it required in-depth discussion with decision makers. He opined that we also need to discuss which channels of communicating evidence were most helpful during the Covid-19 outbreak. In the trade sector, he said, understanding the factors which could hinder the implementation already approved policies, for example, National Tariff Policy, e-commerce policy etc., is quite important.

Tayyaba Batool, Ministry of Commerce, opined that the trade sector is being regarding as an “essential service” sector during the pandemic. Therefore, the government took steps to ensure that trade continues smoothly, and exports are not hurt due to any supply chain disruptions. Pakistan’s commercial officers posted abroad were sending reports on a daily basis to help exporters, she added.

Naveed Aziz, Governance Advisor, UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, highlighted that frequent turnover of civil service could hurt the sustainability of research and evidence reforms in the public sector. This matter needs to be addressed under the overall set of civil service and institutional reform initiatives by the government, he said.