DAWN - Editorial; July 24, 2005

Published July 24, 2005

Foreign trade strategy

THE foreign trade strategy announced the other day for the current fiscal year appears sound enough to achieve the objective of enhancing export earnings to about $17 billion as against $14.4 billion last year. This strategy envisages better market access, export facilitation and marketing, diversification, reducing the cost of doing business and streamlining procedures. New concessions have been allowed to boost the export of gems and jewellery, garments, pharmaceuticals, footwear, marble and granite, poultry and meat and horticulture. In a welcome move, Pakistan also proposes to market services like the expertise gained by Nadra in data collection and collation besides our legal, medical, accounting, architectural, construction and engineering skills. A new strategy is being developed to seek markets in regions that have so far been ignored like the Central Asian countries, Latin America and Africa. The idea of appointing local marketing executives and honorary consuls in these regions appears to be the right thing to do. Similarly, a trade-lobbying firm is to be set up in the US while in the EU there will be a specialized firm to procure exports orders and obtain better prices for our goods.

The bilateral investment treaty being negotiated with the US is expected to bring in buyer-driven investment. From January 1 next year, Pakistan will join the EU’s new GSP scheme, which will reopen the doors of EU markets for most of Pakistani exports so far not allowed entry there. On the same day will come into effect the South Asia Free Trade Agreement under which both Pakistan and India are required to reduce their respective tariffs to 0.5 per cent over a period of seven years. Pakistan has also been using the instrument of Free Trade and Preferential Trade Agreements as well as Early Harvest Agreements to boost its exports to various countries and regions. In order to streamline the Afghan transit trade a new customs checkpoint is being set up on the Balochistan-Afghan border and rules are being updated to stop smuggling in the name of re-export of goods from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

The new foreign trade strategy also appears to possess the potential for keeping the notional import target of $21.79 billion for the year from going out of control. But one should not disregard the possibility of the volatility of international oil prices upsetting this target, as they did last year when the oil import bill went up from the targeted $3.2 billion to nearly four billion dollars. So, the government should be prepared to face a more formidable trade gap than the $4.79 billion fixed for the year. By liberalizing the import of second-hand cars through the provision of more facilities for the purpose for overseas Pakistanis, the policymakers seem to aim at stabilizing domestic car prices. This would perhaps also encourage a part of the remittances now going mostly into stocks and real estate to enter the car trade. This in turn will encourage increased flows of remittances, which are needed badly to bridge the widening trade gap. All said and done, the government would need to focus more on reducing the cost of doing business in the country as well as on raising the quality of Pakistani products to international standards. World markets are highly competitive and it is only through cost efficiency and quality that we could create profitable niches in these markets for our goods.

Egypt blasts

FOLLOWING close on the heels of the London bombings, Saturday’s devastating series of suicide explosions that killed 88 people at the tourist resort of Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt should leave no doubt that the arena for the war on terror continues to expand. For, while Egypt is no stranger to attacks by Islamic militants (who, since 1997, have killed close to 200 people — mostly tourists — in the country), it was hoped that the announcement of democratic reforms and the country’s first multiparty presidential election scheduled for September would help lessen local grievances. This apparently has not happened, especially among certain sections, such as the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots whose members have been routinely subjected to crackdowns by the law enforcement agencies and which has called for a boycott of the coming polls. However, so far there are no clear indications that the latest killings were the result of purely ‘home-grown’ violence. A group with ties to Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility and in view of the fact that previous attacks on tourists have been linked to foreign elements, Saturday’s bombing will be perceived as part of the larger network of terrorists operating worldwide.

Unfortunately, even as the world condemns the latest terrorist attack as “senseless” (in the words of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice), the human rights abuses perpetrated by outside forces on the people of Iraq, Chechnya, Palestine, Afghanistan and occupied Kashmir continue to be ignored. While the killing of the tourists is a reprehensible act, so is the slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women and children by American and other forces engaged in combat in Iraq and elsewhere. Two wrongs have never made a right, so what is all this carnage achieving apart from deepening divisions between the West and the Islamic world and sowing seeds of further confrontation, unrest and violence? What is needed is dialogue and introspection, not the brandishing of weapons or the diktats of blinkered ideologies. One only hopes that the warring sides realize the importance of this in time. Otherwise, it may be too late to restrain the hatred that is threatening to engulf the whole world.

South Punjab oppression

A REPORT released by the Multan task force of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan makes for depressing reading. It states that 262 men and 125 women were killed in the first six months of this year in south Punjab, while 201 women were subjected to criminal assault. Of the women killed, 39 were murdered on the pretext of honour as were 26 men. The breakdown of crimes against women is horrifying: of the women raped, 107 were married, 93 were not and one was a widow. As many as 324 women, married and unmarried, were kidnapped. Children too were not spared: 73 were kidnapped. And if criminal motives were not damning enough, 46 men and 19 women committed suicide; the majority of them were married and unable to cope with economic pressures. The harrowing figures do not end here. Death penalty was awarded to 108 men and one woman, out of whom 14 people have been executed so far. Not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies come under scrutiny for their high-handed investigation methods: 164 people were subjected to police torture while five men and one woman died in police custody. The HRCP report also mentions an absurd blasphemy case registered against five children in Khanewal district who were charged with making an effigy of a religious personality.

These gloomy statistics reflect the dismal state of human rights in the country. The HRCP will find similar stories of police excesses, suicide, crime — be it murder or honour-related — elsewhere in the country. While it is important that we recognize the existence of these sickening crimes, equal importance must be placed on finding solutions. The country’s lawmakers have some serious introspection to do if there is to be a long-term strategy that will get us out of this gloom and doom scenario.

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