Trade liberalisation to bear fruit: NA Speaker

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser has said that trade liberalisation will help bring in prosperity.

“Pakistan has a wonderful opportunity to capitalise on the unfolding CPEC and its trade with Afghanistan, especially in the post-COVID-19 context,” he said while chairing the 8th meeting of the Executive Committee of Pakistan-Afghanistan Parliamentary Friendship Group (Pak-Afghan PFG) in the Parliament House on Thursday

The Speaker said that promotion of trade with neighbours needed a special focus of public representatives.

He said that business and investor-friendly policies would attract investors from across the world to invest in different businesses.

While reviewing the implementation of recommendations of Pak-Afghan PFG, Mr Qaiser directed the Commerce and Law Ministry to expedite the bill process for evolving a workable trade dispute resolution mechanism pending for a year.

He also stressed that there should not be any discriminatory bank policy towards opening accounts of foreign investors.

The deputy governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) briefed the committee that 9,035 Afghan nationals had bank accounts in 26 banks.

He said that border management and markets needed interventions to create economic opportunities for people in and around the border areas.

He stressed the importance of cross-stuffing of transit trade containers to radically reduce the cost of transit trade.

He also directed the Interior Ministry to simplify the procedure for foreign nationals to own properties in Pakistan to encourage them to invest in the country.

The BOI was instructed to come up with a comprehensive proposal to encourage foreign investment in Pakistan.

The committee also deliberated on an initiative to enhance pharmaceutical exports to Afghanistan.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister M Arbab Shahzad emphasised the need to have a workable solution to relax ban on the export of livestock, especially for the people of border areas in KPK and Balochistan.

He also sought strong coordination between federal and provincial departments to tackle the issues of border areas, especially emerging issues of pedestrians, providing alternative livelihoods and infrastructural development.

On the briefing by Representative of Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), he said that the recruitment on FBR posts be expedited.