The Gujranwala city has acquired the export volume of $680 million by May 2007 despite poor infrastructure and misallocation of funds by respective departments.

As many as 25,000 cottage industries and 6,500 small, medium and large industries are working in Gujranwala while the city’s share in gross domestic product (GDP) is five per cent.

According to Gujranwala Chamber of Commerce and Industry secretary Syed Ali Asim, city’s exports were just $80 million in 2000, which increased four times to $320 million in 2006, and doubled to $680 million this year.

He said the export performance was far from satisfactory because of many hindrances. He said six per cent import tax on raw material, 15 per cent GST and taxes on utility bills had increased the production cost.

Establishment of Technical Upgradation and Skill Development Company by the government was a step in the right direction, he said.

Mr Asim said industrialists had to get dyes from local machine operators, ‘khiradiyas’, who could not give precision and variety in shapes. As a result, dyes were bought from China, but the inception of TUSDEC would be beneficial for manufacturing of quality products because of computerised dyes made by the company.

He said the Gulf, African, especially South Africa and the USA, and some European countries were the markets for Gujranwala products.

“Now the chamber is focusing more on the European and Central Asian markets where trade policies are very helpful.”

TUSDEC director and GCCI president Rana Shahzad Hafeez told Dawn that the role of the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan was not satisfactory because of a lack of its contact with the GCCI.

He said Gujranwala’s contribution to the Export Development Fund of TDAP amounted to Rs90 million which were not being used for the development of its industry.

He said TDAP had sent only two delegations to Sri Lanka and Africa from Gujranwala since the establishment of the chamber. The EDF was being used by TDAP for the development of big cities only.

He suggested that the Rs90 million share of the city in EDF should be given to the State Bank’s Gujranwala branch to act as monitoring and fund-approving authority which would sanction funds according to the proposals of GCCI for sending delegations to foreign countries, holding stalls in international exhibitions, inviting foreign teams and other export promotion activities.

Mr Hafeez said the authority was not consulting with the chamber and had withheld Rs2 million for arranging exhibitions in Gujranwala.

He suggested that the contribution of each city to EDF must be utilised by itself.

He said another hurdle in the promotion of exports was poor road infrastructure. He said many exporters and big industrialists had shifted to Lahore which lowered the volume of Gujranwala exports.

He suggested that the government should evolve a policy to spend 20 per cent of the GST contribution of a city on its development. The contribution of rice was 30 per cent to the total exports of Gujranwala while ceramics industry was the second biggest contributor. The ceramics sector could not afford the latest costly machinery to compete with other countries’ high quality products in international markets, he pointed out.

He said the ministry of industry and production had also approved a Ceramics Development Centre to be built at a cost of Rs40 million. He claimed that China had not knocked Gujranwala industry down in every field as international orders for ceramics were still more than the production in Gujranwala.

TDAP assistant-director Irshad Husain told Dawn that according to rules, subsidy for managing industrial exhibitions could be given to respective chambers for three years but the authority had been giving a subsidy of Rs1 million for “Made in Gujranwala Exhibition” for the last five years to GCCI.

He said TDAP had given Rs2 million to GCCI in 2006 and that was the reason the authority did not give any subsidy in 2007 for holding exhibition.

The exhibition, he said, had become a commercial activity and the chamber could meet its expenses by getting stalls charges. That’s why TDAP stopped raising funds for such exhibits.

He said the authority had been bearing 50 per cent expenses for sending delegations of the chamber to foreign countries.

Mr Husain said TDAP had been bearing 50 per cent expenses for getting space in international exhibitions for domestic products. It had been arranging different seminars to educate industrialists properly, and a “HS code” (Harmonised Coding System) seminar was conducted in April 2007 in Gujranwala to educate exporters for international trade.

The official said the authority had a plan to manage foreign parties for small exporters because the latter had no access to the former. It would charge five per cent of the profits of those exporters.