EVERYONE agrees that export growth is vital for the country’s precarious balance of payments position. Loans (from multilateral lenders and donors, eurobonds), ‘one offs’ (from 3/4G license auctions, gift from a friendly country, off-loading of equity holdings), and lucky breaks (Coalition Support Fund, bonanza of weak oil and commodity prices) seem to have run their course.

Furthermore, no ‘import management strategy,’ as employed of late, can compensate for anemic export growth, which appears to have become our new normal.

But does everyone agree under whose remit export growth is, and if this apparition is both competent and sufficiently empowered? Does it have a clue, beyond tired alibis, about why the export volumes are stubbornly refusing to budge? Will the six-month overdue Strategic Trade Policy Framework 2015-18 (cleared by a committee headed by the finance minister, of course) make us any the wiser?

The Ministry of Commerce (MoC), who we are told has the mandate, faces a shrinking policy space. Either it doesn’t have what it takes or the interventions are too powerful to contend with. It can’t do much about the held-up refunds that have seriously affected exporters’ cash flows. It is a silent spectator when it comes to the tariff policy. We doubt if it ever cautioned against the recently announced ‘mini budget’.

The dictum ‘tax on imports is a tax on exports’ may be arguable, but if your exports have high import content, as should be the case with Pakistan (if you wish to diversify away from cotton textiles), surely it will affect your competitiveness.

The commerce ministry has no say in matters of the exchange rate — the quintessential lifeboat our competitors use in times of stress. It can only give a bemused look when, instead of looking at the real effective exchange rate to maintain export competitiveness, the State Bank of Pakistan chooses to accuse ‘analysts’ if the rupee weakens.

The ministry has little control over even trade facilitation and it is unable to incentivise exports, as the lock is in.

So what does the MoC do?

Trade fairs, trade offices, Export Development Fund (EDF). And, yes, free trade agreements. It also pretends to have something to do with domestic commerce, happily oblivious to the fact that it is now a provincial subject.

Trade fairs:The only way to find out if trade fairs are worth it is by getting an independent cost-and-benefit evaluation done.

Trade offices: Lets take a huge leap of faith here and assume that all our trade officers are chosen on merit alone. But can one of them honestly say what his job is, and if he was trained for it? If his job is trade diplomacy, why can’t it be done by the better trained ambassador, with necessary backstopping from the MoC?

And why do we have trade officers in all those lovely European capitals when EU trade policy matters are handled in Brussels? If their job is marketing, do they know the products? Can they really be expected to have sufficient knowledge about the hundreds of products that are exported to their jurisdictions?

Or, is their job facilitating B2B partnerships? For that, they would need an intimate knowledge of Pakistani suppliers and value chains, distribution channels and the respective aspirations of the potential partners.

One commerce secretary wished to have a proper evaluation of the trade offices done. A scheme to do so was approved by the EDF Board, but the secretary quit the government before it could be implemented. It is now languishing.

Could it be that the mandarins who covet these foreign postings feel threatened, as a proper evaluation could come up with a recommendation to drastically reduce the number of trade offices, besides instituting more robust selection criteria and training requirements?

The EDF is funded by exporters for use by exporters. However, collections into the EDF flow through the finance ministry, which siphons off a large chunk for budgetary support.

Whatever is left is divvied up among the members of the EDF Board for their pet projects. In most cases, there is hardly any link between these projects and export growth. It defies logic, for instance, that how building offices for chambers of commerce will help exports grow.

A classic illustration of the disconnect between intent and outcome is the manner in which the proposal to establish overseas offices of trade associations was neutered by the MoC. We had submitted that the way forward was state-of-the-art research, technological diffusion, innovation and ‘partnerships’ — with buyers, suppliers of knowhow and technology, and trade bodies. This required our presence abroad.

The EDF Board agreed to sanction funds for the FPCCI and two associations to open their offices abroad. Excited, we proceeded, full throttle, to locate the office premises, select the team and meet the juridical and banking requirements of the host country. We knew all this would cost money and time. We were prepared for it.

What we were not prepared for was the bureaucratic ringer at home. We resisted the ‘shakedown’ efforts of some, agreed to all the (legitimate) procedural requirements of the government, and ourselves proposed a proper disbursement and audit regime.

But after two years of arduous effort, we went back to the EDF Board to say we would rather withdraw than put up with the MoC’s intransigence. It did not take the board’s chairman more than a minute to allow our withdrawal. No sign of remorse, no inclination whatsoever to look at the causes of our surrender.

One test of the efficacy of an organisation is if it will be missed if it was not there. This is something that the MoC’s engineer superintending has to ponder over. We, on our part, like to think it is too early to read the last rites. It may be the triumph of hope over experience, but we feel the MoC can make a difference. If only it could get its act together.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, December 14th, 2015