960417

Delay in decisions

hampering TCP's

Rs 1 bn export target

MUZAFFAR QURESHI

KARACHI: The Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) has set an export target of one billion dollars for the next year, but the delayed decisions by the Board of Directors of the Corporation are hampering the export drive, according to the President of TCP Officers Association, Saeed Khan Mobejo. In a letter to the Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has requested her to order re-structuring of the organisation by changing its present bureaucratic set-up to enable the TCP achieve its export target.

He said that slow and delayed decision taken by the Board of Directors of the Corporation resulted in losing many export deals, including export of onion to Sri Lanka.

Saeed Khan stated that after the revival of TCP on January 16, 1996, by the present government the Corporation had made several strides in boosting the country's exports under the chairmanship of Nooruddin Ahmed, who is from the private sector, and the guidance from the present Secretary of Commerce.

The TCP has so far successfully undertaken export of various items including rice, clinker, fruits and leather goods worth Rs 1.5 billion. But there are irritants and outdated procedures to be rectified to make the Corporation more effective and viable in line with the open market policy.

Quoting an instance of problems in exports, Saeed Khan said that the TCP successfully approached the Government to remove 25 percent duty on the export of onions but it lost an export order from Sri Lanka because the Board of Directors did not take a decision in time.

The TCP has in hand big export orders for Irri-6 rice, cotton, cement, clinker, fruits and vegetables, leather goods from Bangladesh, UAE, Guinea, Niger, Ghana, Turkey, Japan, Indonesia, UK, Philippine and Central Asian Republics. However, if these export orders are to be fulfilled the Government should appoint professional directors on the TCP board who can work like businessmen in finalising export deals.

The Association congratulated the Government for creating an exclusive Export Promotion Division to be headed by a dynamic person like Salman Farooqui. It also appreciated the Government's market oriented trade policies which led to inflow of foreign investment.