April 5, 2003	Saturday	Safar 2, 1424

ISLAMABAD, April 4: The federal government has decided to launch three studies on agricultural sector to put in place a comprehensive and integrated agriculture policy so as to increase its share in the GDP.

A senior official in the Ministry of Food and Agriculture told Dawn that three separate studies on market access, export competition and domestic support were in progress to base the agriculture policy on findings of these studies.

The official said special emphasis was being given to the impact of World Trade Organization (WTO) regime on Pakistan’s agriculture produce and export when the agreement on agriculture formally comes into force after the next WTO round.

Initial estimates suggest that steps so far taken by the government and the farmers community would contribute only one per cent to the exports. There was, however, no study as to what Pakistan was going to benefit or loose under the WTO regime.

On the other hand, India has taken so much of steps in anticipation of the WTO agreement on agriculture that it would benefit more than 70 per cent through trade liberalization.

The officials said there was no institutional arrangement to cope with the future challenges and the agriculture ministry has suggested to take up the matter with the Parliament.

The sources said that the agriculture sector had no policy at present mainly because of rapid change of top level officials of the ministry which could be seen from the fact that five secretaries were posted one after the other during the last three years.