Siraj Kassam Teli, Chairman Businessmen Group & former President KCCI, urged the Federal Secretary Commerce, Zafar Mahmood for implementation of Trade Organization Ordinance-2007 in letter and spirit. He focused that only the genuine association and chambers having full compliance with TOO-2007 should be registered with Ministry of Commerce.

He recalled that he and KCCI had initiated the efforts and struggling of for eliminating the fake and paper-based associations/ chambers and in view of such struggle, the Government had appointed a Committee headed by Justice (Retd) Saleem Akhtar, which comprehensively examined the issue, while consulting all the stakeholders from Pakistan and submitted the report which resulted to the formulation of TOO-2007. He urged that Ministry of Commerce for strict compliance and implementation of TOO-2007.

Muhammad Zubair Motiwala, Advisor to Chief Minister Sindh for Investment said that currently, in the presence of unprecedented challenges and problems like higher cost of utilities, the cost of manufacturing and production has increased and trade shrinking is observed. He suggested the Federal Secretary Commerce for preparation of business chart of competitive countries and their competitive prices regarding exports. He also observed that upto 60 percent of orders of export-oriented industries are declined because they cannot meet the competitive prices offered by the counterparts in competing countries.

He was of the view the five-zero-rated sectors should be revisited before implementation of VAT. Commenting the Afghan Transit Trade, he said that negotiations with Afghan representatives are proving productive regarding identification of items like black tea, milk powder, electronics items etc, opening of LCs from Kabul, checking and monitoring of containers transit to Afghanistan under lock & key.

Earlier, Acting President-KCCI, Rasheeduddin Rashid welcomed Federal Secretary Commerce and briefed him about the KCCI's strategic role in the growth of trade & industry and its contribution in the national exchequer. While addressing to the Federal Secretary for Commerce, he emphasized on the need of taking stakeholders into confidence before finalizing the Trade Policy. He urged on the need to remove hurdles in enhancement of trade. Commercial Counsellors should be selected from private sector or from the Pakistani business community in foreign countries and must be given targets to improve the bilateral trades, he suggested.

Speaking at the occasion, Rasheeduddin Rashid said that textile export is a main source of earning foreign exchange, which contributes over 50% to our total exports, but unfortunately high operational cost, hike in the tariff of power and gas has declined the export activities. He added that in recent days, the matter of unlimited export of yarn and raw material, leading to scarcity for the domestic usage has further slowed the wheels of value-added export industry. He urged that exports espoused with Value-Addition and branding with logos "Made in Pakistan" be preferred than the export of raw material. For export of indigenous products, some benchmark should be set so that the domestic and value-added export-oriented industry must not suffer. He urged on the need of establishing modern purpose-built warehouses, supply chain and logistic solutions for preserving the indigenous produces and crops for value-added exports.

Zafar Mahmood, Federal Secretary for Commerce expressed gratitude to KCCI for extending time for the meeting. He sought cooperation of KCCI and welcomed KCCI's proposals and suggestions. He informed that Trade Organizations Ordinance-2007 is finally with the National Assembly's Standing Committee for Commerce for legislation. He said that Government is facing a fiscal deficit owing to the war against terrorism and he learned in a meeting whereby Federal Finance Minister apprised about 200 million decline in PSDP. He said that due to negative perception of Pakistan abroad, the foreign buyers hesitate to visit and therefore their Pakistani suppliers have to visit them in respective countries whereby often face delays to get the visas. He said that labour/ manpower was increasing with 6 percent, however, the industry was not growing with the same percentage. He said that indications are better to get more market access and GSP-plus for EU.