KARACHI: “Strength through diversity” should be the slogan of every Pakistani in the business field, said Mr Fazlur Rahman addressing the Foreign Trade Development Council [here] on Thursday [April 26]. And he added: “Let it be an active and aggressive effort, not just another catchword.” Mr Fazlur Rahman reviewed the progress made by Pakistan in the commercial field and disclosed that during the first eight months of the current season beginning from July, 1950, Pakistan exported 31 lakh bales of jute worth Rs 50.01 crores to foreign countries.

Stating that there was no slackening in the flow of jute to foreign countries, he said that “remarkable achievement” made in jute trading during the season “must not be regarded as a phenomenon the recurrence of which we cannot expect”. He considered it “as the ordinary pattern of trade”.

“The fact is,” the Minister added, “that before this season the jute world outside Bharat was on a starvation diet, and we are now nursing it back to industrial strength.” He stated that Pakistan did not subscribe to the common error that jute and Bharat were synonymous. The dictum, he added, had “now been exposed in all its falsity.”

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2026