December 14, 2007	Friday	Zilhaj 3, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Dec 13: Services sector exports declined by 12.59 per cent in the first four months of the current fiscal year to $897.560 million against $1,026.817 million over last year, Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) said on Thursday.

The decline in export of services proceeds was the outcome of steady decrease in export of services (transportation, communication, construction, business and royalties and license fees) during the period under review.

On a monthly basis, the decline in services exports was more worrisome as it declined by 36.80 per cent to $240.355 million in October 2007 as against $380.338 million in the same month last year.

An official in the commerce ministry told Dawn that Pakistan faces a series of barriers to export its services to the developed countries.

Until these barriers were removed, it would be difficult for Pakistan to get maximum benefits from exporting its services to the developed countries, especially in the areas of allowing movement of natural persons.

There are four ways or modes of supply of trade in services: mode-1 cross border, mode-2 consumption abroad, mode-3 commercial presence and mode-4 temporary movement (presence of natural person under GATS.

He said Pakistan is working on revised offers to be submitted to the WTO secretariat possibly in March next. Pakistan had already submitted initial offers in the services sector as required under the GATS.

On the other hand, Pakistan has opened up its domestic market for foreign services providers, particularly in the banking, insurance, telecommunication, retail and some other sectors, which were flooded by foreign service providers.

This is clear from the fact that import of services were up by 11.52 per cent in the first four months of the current fiscal year to $2.994 billion against $2.684 billion over the corresponding period of last year.

On monthly basis, the growth was even more than 23 per cent to $801.922 million in October 2007 against $648.08 million over the same month last year.

Analysts proposed establishment of an independent task force to prepare the country’s position for making commitments to liberalise various sectors for foreign service providers under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) regime.

They said that the task force should be supervised by a senior advisory group having representatives from regulatory bodies, ministries, civil society and policy-makers, while preparing Pakistan’s position by the ministry of commerce and WTO -Geneva-based Pakistani mission in the multilateral trade negotiation.

According to details compiled by FBS for first three months, the export of insurance, finance and computer services was up by 108.26 per cent, 233.98 per cent and 35.67 per cent, respectively.

The major chunk in the export of services came from government which included spending on embassies, recorded 32.94 per cent and personal and cultural services which were up by 191.23 per cent.

The export of services which recorded a negative growth included transportation, communication, construction, royalties and other business services during the period under review over last year.