KARACHI, Jan 12: The government will allocate Rs110 million, out of Export Marketing Development Fund (EMDF) for the mega event of Expo Pakistan 2007 being held from March 29 to April 1, 2007, and the balance would be raised through sponsors to meet the expected expenditures of around Rs150 million.
This transpired during second meeting of the steering committee of Expo Pakistan 2007, which was chaired by Minister for Commerce Humayun Akhtar Khan on Friday, in the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) office at the FTC building.
All the committee members related to the event updated the minister about the progress and some of the issues were finalised. But with regard to appointment of event manager, some differences cropped up during the meeting and the matter was deferred till next meeting.
Naveed Arif, secretary TDAP, with the help of slides informed the committee members about the progress and plans for organising the mega event.
He suggested that instead of issuing PTA for air-tickets to fully paid foreign guests invited to expo 2007, it would be better that the required amount be reimbursed on their arrival at hotel through bank or any other mode.
In the past, he said it was witnessed that a very large number of PTA advice was not used by foreign guests and this resulted in loss of revenue.
Mr Arif cited that in many cases the foreign buyers and guests have to change the person for attending the event which results in non-utilisation of the air-tickets issued under PTA advice owing to change in name.
This was approved by the commerce minister and suggested that ways and means should be chalked out as to how to reimburse the air-ticket and other costs.
Similarly, there was a lot of discussion over accommodation and it was suggested that not more than 500 rooms should be booked because in many cases they are not occupied and on the contrary this results in artificial shortage to other guests who come on their own expenses.
However, the minister said that maximum number of hotel rooms should be booked, but they must be available to all sort of guests coming from abroad to attend the expo, but what was needed that they should be categories according to the status of guests.
However, he also asked the organisers to cap the room rates with the local hotels and an agreement should be reached with the managements of these hotels.
The minister also announced that first board meeting of TDAP will be held on Jan 19, 2007, and the next meeting of the steering committee of Expo Pakistan 2007, will be held on Feb 13, 2007, in Karachi.
Members of all the seven committees set up to look after different areas of the mega event attended the meeting, including those belonging to the private sector.
Later talking to newsmen, the minister rejected the general notion that there had been a fall in exports during the first six months of the current fiscal and said that exports grew by five per cent and hoped that there would be higher growth in the second half of fiscal.
He pointed out that in last fiscal the first six month’s growth in exports were excellent, but they dropped in the second half of the year.
Similarly, he said imports grew only by 9.5 per cent whereas a year ago they were significantly higher by 53 per cent.
Responding to a question, the minister said that with regard to appointment of event managers, terms of reference (TOR) are being finalised and the TDAP would strictly follow the PAPRA rules in awarding the contract.
Mr Humayun further said that the TDAP had its own audit system to check any discrepancies and for that matter even auditor-general and public accounts committee would also check such matters.
The minister of state and chief executive officer TDAP Tariq Ikram assisted Humanyun Akhtar Khan.