July 27, 2002	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 16,1423

KARACHI, July 26: The Federal Commerce and Industries Minister Abdul Razak Dawood is exploring leasing finance arrangement for marketing of a number of durables that include televisions, air conditioners, washing machines, refrigerators and motorcycles.

“I am meeting State Bank of Pakistan Governor Dr Ishrat Hussain soon to discuss the possibility of leasing finance arrangements for a variety of these durables,” the minister informed a group of newsmen on Friday at the PIDC House. The chairman of Board of Investment, Wasim Haqqie and Dr Akram Sheikh were also present in the press briefing.

Encouraged by phenomenal growth in size of automobile market in the country following the availability of leasing finance cover, the minister looked hopeful of achieving same results in case of durables.

He said the production of television sets have gone up to 472,000 last year in the country and may hit the figure of 600,000 sets very soon and hence the necessity of working out marketing arrangements.

Such a leasing arrangement, he hoped, would give a boost to domestic industry and enable a large number of people to buy these durables.

Abdul Razak Dawood is meeting next Friday (August 3) the representatives of footwear, sugar, air conditioners, acrylic fibre and chemicals to discuss the problem of dumping of these items in the local market.

He said that the government has set in place anti-dumping law and countervailing duty and is in process of setting in a monitoring system. “We cannot depend only on the complaints we hear from the trade and industry on dumping,” he remarked and said that a proper monitoring system will help in finding out the gravity of the problem.

The minister was confident of achieving 10.4 billion dollars export target for the current fiscal year as he said that despite adverse conditions Pakistan has maintained and improved its share in world market in terms of volume of textile goods and other items.

He hoped that prices of textile goods and other items are expected to firm up in the world market and there is no apparent reason to be skeptical on achieving 10.4 billion dollars target.

He estimated size of cotton crop to 12 million bales from 11.5 million bales this season after having harvested 10.4 million bales in the last season.

Giving a review of the last fiscal year’s export performance, he said that textile products export went up from 12 per cent to 20 per cent despite adverse market conditions. A redeeming feature, he said, is the fact that yarn, cloth, bedwear and garments have joined billion dollars club or are about to join.

“The most important short term target is to maintain and if possible increase share of our goods in world market,” he spelt out the export strategy stating that profitability is a long term objective when prices start improving.

He was confident that Pakistan textile is now capable of standing up to world competition after 2004 when all trade barriers will be dismantled. “A lot of investment has been made in textile and I expect more investment to flow in,” he remarked.

The minister, however, was more concerned about rice export, which was down to 1.8 million tons last year as against 2.2 million tons a year earlier.

“But government has not suffered any losses as no procurement was made,” he remarked while reminding newsmen that government used to suffer huge losses when Rice Export Corporation of Pakistan made purchases in the past.

In leather sector, he said footwear export is going up steadily stressing that international footwear market is much bigger than any other leather good.

He was confident of petroleum products export fetching anywhere up to 200 million dollars next year.

The minister also distributed a chart to illustrate the point that prices of Pakistan assembled cars are competitive than those of Indian cars.