Islamabad the 16th May, 2019: 5th meeting of the Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile was held in Committee Room No. 7, Parliament House, at 2:00 pm under the Chairmanship of Syed Naveed Qamar, MNA. The agenda of the meeting is circulated vide Notice No. F.2 (1)/2019-Com-I- Vol-III dated 2nd May, 2019.
 
2.         Mr. Abdul Razak Dawood, Advisor on Commerce briefed the Committee on Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) 2019-2024. The policy objectives of STPF are to make the exports a driver of economic growth, transition from factor-driven to efficiency-driven exports in the short to medium term and innovation driven exports in the long term, improve competitiveness and efficiency of industry especially export-oriented sector by reducing input costs and increasing productivity, attract efficiency-seeking investment into export-oriented production, reduce relative “disincentive” for exporting activities by reducing structural anomalies, and to improve the trade ecosystem by increasing institutional efficiencies and reducing cost of doing business. The vision of STPF is to make Pakistan to become a dynamic and efficient domestic market and a globally-competitive export-driven economy, and its mission is to transform Pakistan from a factor-driven to an efficiency-driven economy integrated into the global and regional value chains in the medium term and an innovation-driven economy in the long term.
 
3.         The Committee showed serious concerns over the crop insurance schemes offered to the farmers and asked the Ministry and National Insurance Company Limited to come up with better packages. Although the wheat crop has been damaged due to the weather calamities but there are sufficient stocks left from the past. He opined that wheat should be deregulated and grading of wheat is necessary. Syed Naveed Qamar, Chairman Standing Committee stressed to change the policy regarding sugar cane and said that this is high time to invest in other crops. For dates crop, the Committee asked the Ministry to resolve the issue of running finance and remittance by taking the farmers into confidence, The committee desired to have more crops covered by Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd. (ZTBL).   
 
4.         The meeting was attended by Mr. Abdul Razak Dawood, Advisor on Commerce and MNA’s, Ali Khan Jadoon, Mr. Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh, Mr. Muhammad Asim Nazir, Mr. Ahmed Hussain Deharr, Mian Muhammad Shafiq, Ms. Wajhia Akram, Ms. Sajida Begum, Ms. Tahira Aurangzeb, Ms. Shaista Pervaiz, Syed Javed Ali Shah Jillani, Secretary along with Senior Officers.