KARACHI - Saifuddin N Zoomkawala, chairman of the EFU Insurance, has asked the government, policy-makers and exporters to continue their efforts to promote exports of textile and other traditional items, but without further neglecting the exports of non-traditional items.
The country has never focused seriously on the promotion of exports of non-traditional sectors that kept Pakistan out of many markets, said Saifuddin N Zoomkawala, who is also the president of the Pakistan German Business Forum (PGBF), at the First Corporate Ambassador Awards 2012 ceremony held at FPCCI.
Zoomkawala said that the exporters and exports of non-traditional items rarely get government’s adequate support to enhance exports and capture maximum markets. The country should now concentrate on value addition in agricultural produce, minerals, stones, plastic, chemicals and others, he said. He appreciated the performance of the exporters of fruit and vegetable sector for making good contribution in the country’s revenue.
In his opening remarks of ceremony, weekly Corporate Ambassador raised an important point of Farooq Afzal, a renowned textile exporter, who said that Pakistan was just exporting $100 million dollars worth textile goods to Russia that imports around $70 billion worth textile products a year.
Taking this key point in mind, Zoomkawala said that beside promoting the traditional exports like textile and rice, the policy makers and exporters should also enhance exports of non-traditional exports.
He also pointed out that 50-MW the country’s first Wind Energy plant at Jhampir, district Thatta, is almost complete and it would start producing electricity in June 2012.
He said that India was producing more than 30,000 MWs of electricity from the wind technology, but Pakistan had neglected it.
”Now our people had started realizing the importance of wind energy technology and making efforts to utilize it to produce electricity that don’t need any input unlike thermal and gas power plants that consume a massive amount of fuels (the exhaustible natural resources),” he said.