ISLAMABAD: The Federal Cabinet on Tuesday approved the Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) till 2025 to enhance the country’s trade competitiveness and also ensure geographical and product diversification of local trade.
The STPF 2020-25 aimed to enhance the ability of Pakistani enterprises’ capacity to produce, distribute and sell products and services more efficiently than our competitors, said a press release issued by Ministry of Commerce here.
Priority sectors have been identified under the STPF after studying the international demand trends on one hand and on the other the capacity and capabilities of various traditional and developmental export sectors of Pakistan.
The former includes textile and apparel, leather, surgical instruments, sports goods, carpets, rice and cutlery.
The developmental export sectors comprise of engineering goods (incl. auto parts), pharmaceuticals, marble and minerals, processed food and beverages, footwear, gems and jewelry, meat and poultry and chemicals.
The main focus of STPF will be on geographical and product diversification, manufacturing cost reduction through tariff rationalisation, pursuit of regional connectivity including Look Africa and Silk Route Reconnect policies, and enhancement of market access through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs).
It also includes facilitation of logistics and tracking under the International Road Transports (TIR) Convention and enhancement of regional connectivity for access to Central Asian Republics, Turkey and Iran, through them to Europe and Russia.
The STPF is dynamic in nature and it will be subject to course correction based on constant monitoring and evaluation.
There shall be an institutionalized mechanism for robust monitoring and implementation of the STPF in order to minimize policy implementation gaps, which have traditionally remained a weak link due to multi-organizational roles in the export ecosystem.
In order to oversee the implementation, a cross functional National Export Development Board (NEDB) has already been constituted under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, comprising of senior public sector officials of relevant organizations and private sector representatives.
Regular meetings of the NEDB are being held in order to ensure the implementation of various policy measures.
