Trade Policy 2004-05 to be announced today
Pakistan Times Business & Commerce Desk

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Commerce Minister, Humayun Akhtar Khan will announce Trade Policy 2004-05 in his speech on PTV and Radio Pakistan, simultaneously at 7:15 p.m. today.

Prior to the finalization of Trade Policy 2004-05, comprehensive consultative process was completed with all the stakeholders, says a press release issued here on Wednesday.

Governors and Chief Ministers of all the four provinces have already been briefed and consulted on the Trade Policy. The Commerce Minister along with Secretary Commerce, Tasneem Noorani on Tuesday gave a presentation to President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister, Ch. Shujaat Hussain.

The Trade Policy will be formally approved in a special meeting of the Cabinet on Thursday, before its announcement.

'To have several measures, incentives for exports'

Meanwhile, Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan said Wednesday, the Trade Policy 2004-05 will have several measures and incentives for boosting exports of the country.

This, he stated, while briefing Ministers for Health, Privatization and Investment, and Science and Technology on Trade Policy 2004-05 in an inter-ministerial meeting held here at the Ministry of Commerce.

The Commerce Minister said that the government would take up the task of rehabilitation of the existing infrastructure of industrial estates.

In House Effluent Treatment Plants would be given incentives; warehouses would be set up in Europe to meet the foreign market demand; horticulture sector would be given a package; priority export sectors would be considerably 'incentivised'; inland subsidy for certain finished export products would be offered, Humayun Akhtar maintained.

The Commerce Minister said that restructuring of Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) was going to be taken up soon along with strengthening of Foreign Trade Institute of Pakistan (FTIP).●