ISLAMABAD, July 14: A high-level meeting will review the draft trade policy 2008-09 on Tuesday envisaging a host of measures for kicking off growth in exports and arrest the rising trend in imports.

An official source in the commerce ministry told Dawn that a special presentation will be given to the high-level meeting headed by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Lahore ahead of the scheduled meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet.

“This is the preliminary meeting on the draft trade policy ahead of the cabinet meeting,” the official said.

He said whatever the meeting proposed will be included in the draft. After inclusion of amendments if any, the final draft will be presented on the special cabinet meeting on July 18 before the formal announcement, the official added.

The meeting will be informed about the export target of $19.2 billion in the fiscal year 2007-08. This target was more by $2.2 billion over the previous year exports.

“We have different estimates for exports for the year 2008-09. However, it would be in the vicinity of $21 billion for the year,” the official said.

According to the official, the export target for the outgoing fiscal year has been achieved after missing of targets in the previous two consecutive years.

The official said that the current trade policy focus will be to reduce cost of doing business, finance new projects, and also propose new schemes for diversification of export base.

Under the import regime, it has also been under consideration to add new items to the positive list for import from India. More than 1,000 items are tradable with India under the current regime.

The items to be added include raw materials, semi-finished goods and some finished goods particularly related to pharmaceuticals.

The official said that government was also considering various options to project an import target for the current fiscal year with an object to curtail the rising trend the import bill, which pushed up the trade deficit to all time high of over $20 billion.

The government for the first time had not announced any estimates for import bill during the trade policy 2007-08.

“We are considering various options to slow down the import of luxury items,” the official said.

It has also been under consideration to further tighten the import of used vehicles under the three schemes for the overseas Pakistanis, the official added.

Pakistan spent more than Rs66 billion on imports of mobile phones during the year 2007-08. To curtail this trend, the government introduced a flat rate of Rs600 tax on import of mobile irrespective of its value.