LAHORE: For achieving an ambitious export target of $31.125 billion for the current fiscal year, Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed the newly formed National Export Deve­lopment Board (NEDB) to meet thrice in a month and resolve all issues faced by the export industry.

The PM assured the business community of rendering his full support by taking ownership of the board.

“There will be two meetings of the board to be held in a month by the ministries of commerce and trade. I [PM] will myself preside over the third meeting that will discuss outcome of the last two meetings and take remedial measures leading to boost the exports,” Pakistan Ready-made Gar­ments Man­u­facturers and Exp­­­orters Association (Prgm­ea) chief organiser Ijaz Khokhar quoted Prime Minister Imran Khan as having said in the board’s first meeting held on Aug 2.

During meeting, the PM was briefed by the commerce ministry about the country’s export performance in 2020-21. The PM was told that the country’s exports had been divided in three major categories— textiles, agro and non-agro products. The textile & apparel sector exports had been projected at $15.380bn for 2020-21 whereas for FY22 the target is fixed at $20bn.

Similarly, the agri sector’s exports were projected at $4.341bn for FY21 whereas for the ongoing fiscal year the target is $4.858bn. The FY21 export target for non-agro sector was $5.578bn while for FY22 it is projected at $6.357bn.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2021