By Menahill Rashid
FAISALABAD: Engineer Hafiz Ihtasham Javed President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) has welcomed the first export consignment of mango to Russia via land route and said that it will not only encourage export of non-traditional items to the non-traditional markets but also help Pakistan to achieve the projected export target of 50 billion dollars within the next couple of years.
He was sanguine of the proactive economic policies of the current government and said that it was making serious efforts to diversify the exports instead of depending only on the textile sector. He said that as a result of Government’s policies, Pakistan has made IT (Information Technology) exports of two billion dollar during last year. Similarly, the mango export will help Pakistan to earn precious foreign exchange from the non-traditional markets. He said that it is a positive step to diversify the exports but the Government should not ignore the key role of textile which was contributing a lion’s share in the overall national exports. He identified agriculture as an important segment of the economy and said that by promoting agricultural productivity, we could not only stabilize our economy on a sustained basis but also weed out rural poverty. He urged the Government to provide high yielding, water efficient and disease resistant seeds of different crops so that we could enhance the earning of our farming community with limited land holding. “Our focus should be on enhancing domestic production of edible oil, pulses and exotic varieties of fruits including mango and Kinno etc”, he said and added that it will not only bring down our import bill but also help Pakistan to earn maximum foreign exchange.
