ISLAMABAD, July 14: Pakistan’s share in the world services sector could not grow beyond 0.06 per cent due to a number of impediments and obstacles. Officials told Dawn on Wednesday that the total value of Pakistan’s export of services stood at $1.5 billion in 2003-04, while the value of imported services was $2.5 billion during the same year.

This showed that the trade deficit in the services sector stood at almost $1 billion in 2003-04. While the total world trade in services stood at $1.7 trillion. Pakistan government services and communication services were the only sector which stood in surplus, while the rest remained in the deficit during the same year under review.

These barriers both tariff and non-tariff restricted the entry of Pakistani services providers to the market of both developed and developing countries.

To understand the implications of the trade in services, the International Trade Centre (ITC) has started a study to identify the impediments to the export of Pakistan’s services in the international market as part of the European Commission’s funded Trade Related Technical Assistance Programme (TRTA).

According to the initial findings of the study available with Dawn showed Pakistan’s services exports in various countries mainly face the problems of quality, acceptance of professional credentials, visas problems, re-certification process, multiple taxation regime, country image problem after 9/11 and national treatment, etc.

The commerce ministry has yet to establish a specialized wing in the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) to provide a platform for identifying potential markets and platforms for the export of services sector.

Pakistan has potential to export financial services to both developed and developing countries. However, many Pakistani banks had closed its branches in various countries due to restrictions of high pre-paid capital, non-recognition of the credentials of Pakistani banks and some other home regulations.

The hard hit of these regulations and some other reasons was the Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB), which had closed down its branches in 26 countries.

It was observed foreign countries such as Sri Lanka should remove restrictions on repatriation of earnings from customer companies. Similarly, countries like United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia should not require foreign companies to take on local partners as they often edge out the foreign partners.

It was pointed out that the United Kingdom should allow Pakistan accountants to work there and Singapore should generally ease restrictions on all types of foreign workers. There is a problem of re-certification in UK and Canada, which restrict selling of Pakistani services to those markets.

Pakistan has very tangible share in export of information technology related services sector. There are many shortcomings in the sector, which made it less competitive with those of other countries. There is a lack of skilled labour, quality educated professionals, lack of basic infrastructure, training of human resources, lack of research and development, low extent fibre optic connectivity to more location in Pakistan and piracy.