June 4, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1424

ISLAMABAD, June 3: The chairman, Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), Tariq Ikram on Tuesday said around 85 new products were exported to 38 new countries during first 10 months of the current financial year.

Talking to Dawn here on Tuesday at the conclusion of the 54th meeting of the advisory council of ministry of commerce, he said the export of non-traditional items was the result of subsidy, which stood at Rs138 million.

To explore new markets for new products, former commerce minister, Abdul Razak Dawood had announced 25pct export subsidy in trade policy.

Replying to a question, he said that subsidy was quite helpful in getting access to new markets for the export of non- traditional items. However, he said that EPB had also detected two cases wrong claim of subsidy.

The EPB would carry out the audit of these two cases and the result would be soon submitted to the commerce ministry for action.

The export of the new products during the current financial year mostly included fresh vegetables, live crabs, glass bottle, carrots, solid salt pieces, poultry, melons, wheat straw, clay pottery, marble blocks, sacks and bags, vermicelli and others small items. The countries where the items were exported included Bulgaria, Cameron, Hong Kong, Hungry, Cyprus, Ecuador, Estonia, Guinea, Zambia and Moldova.

The chairman said that the government had also included the Gulf States in the scheme to export new products.

This scheme has resulted into an increase of Pakistan’s export to these countries during the current financial year, he added.