ISLAMABAD: After a delay of five months, the Ministry of Commerce has sent a summary of the Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) 2015-18 to the prime minister for his approval, an official told Dawn on Thursday.

The policy was to be implemented from July 1, 2015 as the STPF 2012-15 expired on June 30, 2015. An official said implementation of the new STPF could go a long way in arresting the trend of decline in exports. In the first four months of this fiscal year, the country’s export proceeds witnessed a double digits decline.

The process on the formulation of the new policy was started in September 2014 and the commerce ministry received 837 proposals. Of these 50 came from FPCCI, 110 from chambers of commerce and industries, 160 from trade associations, 240 from Pakistan’s trade mission abroad and 200 from federal and provincial government departments.

The official said the proposals were examined between November 2014 to March 2015. This exercise was followed by inter-ministerial consultation between March-April 2015. And the advisory council meeting was held in May 2015.

After completion of the whole exercise, the commerce ministry sent a request to the prime minister secretariat seeking time to give presentation before formally submitting the policy to the cabinet for approval.

Instead of implementing the policy, the prime minister constituted a cabinet committee on production and exports in August 2015. The committee, headed by the finance minister, held two meetings on the STPF and approved it on August 29. It was placed on back burner for more than two and a half months.

The draft policy envisages $35 billion ambitious export target. It is focusing on markets as well as products with a specific support measures in the next three years. The government would also provide Rs20bn for research and development.

The new policy targets product sophistication and diversification; market access; institutional development and strengthening and trade facilitation.

Under the policy, the focus market for basmati rice exports will be Iran, Saudi Arabia. The fresh vegetables and fruits exports like kinno, mango, vegetables, potato, and onion will be supported to markets of South East Asia and Middle East.

In the same category, exports of meat products will be promoted to the markets of Middle East including Iran.

The government will provide freight subsidy on export of cement to Africa. Other potential market for cement are Sri Lanka, India and Afghanistan. The duty structure will be revised on raw material including coal and shredded tyre as well.

As per the draft policy, the market-linked focus products for Iran consist of basmati rice and meat. Under this scheme, for Iran government will provide warehousing support, branding support, certification support, border market support as well infrastructure development support to the identified sectors.

For Afghanistan exports of wheat, rice, meat and cement will be promoted. For Afghanistan, the strategy includes infrastructure development, banking and rail link, zero rating on export of plastics.

For China, the products exports of which will be promoted included rice, yarn, fabrics, and garments.

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2015