Comment by Riaz Haq on February 14, 2015 at 7:58am

Pakistan and China vowed to expedite work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor during a meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi here on Friday.

China has been a trustworthy friend of Pakistan, and friendship with China is the cornerstone of Pakistan's foreign policy, said Sharif.

Pakistan is looking forward to welcoming a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping at an early date in 2015, the Pakistan-China Year of Friendly Exchanges, the prime minister said, adding that his government believes the visit will bring the strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries to a new level.

He said Pakistan attaches great importance to the Pakistan- China Economic Corridor and is willing to work vigorously with China to build the corridor and get early harvest.

For his part, the Chinese foreign minister extended great appreciation to Sharif for his unremitting efforts to promote China-Pakistan ties.

China and Pakistan are "iron brothers," he said, adding the iron brotherhood between the two countries "will never go rusty."

The upcoming visit by President Xi to Pakistan this year will provide a powerful impetus to the development of bilateral relations, said Wang.

He said the two countries should push forward both economic cooperation and security cooperation at the same time. China and Pakistan should boost economic cooperation in key fields such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, port, energy, transportation infrastructure and industries while jointly combating terrorism to maintain peace and stability of the region, said Wang.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2015-02/14/c_127494926.htm

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 15, 2015 at 8:01am

#China's largest embassy opens in #Islamabad symbolizing close #Pakistan-China ties http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2015-02/15/content_19595486.htm …

An opening ceremony of the new Chinese embassy in Pakistan was held on Feb 13. As China's largest overseas embassy, it is a symbol of friendship between China and Pakistan, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday in Pakistan, where he spoke of the two countries' 'all-weather' friendship, Global Times reported.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's two-day visit to Pakistan is seen as a preparation for the upcoming visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to reports.

"Wang Yi said President Xi Jinping will make a state visit to Pakistan at the earliest possible date this year," a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry's website late on Thursday said.

"This will be President Xi's first visit to Pakistan as head of state," Wang said.

Xi was scheduled to go to Pakistan last September, but the trip was postponed due to domestic situation in Pakistan.

Since taking office in 2013, Xi has pushed the idea of a Silk Road Economic Belt that would connect China to South Asia and Central Asia with roads, railways, ports and airports.

Last year, Xi visited India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 2, 2015 at 4:27pm

The country expects to received an overall business of $1.3 billion from the four-day Expo Pakistan 2015 that concluded on Sunday, according to a Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) release.
A large number of serious buyers have established contact with major exporters in Karachi, Lahore, Sialkot and Faisalabad. The buyers are either negotiating new orders or have increased the volume of existing orders after visiting factories in different cities.
The estimated value of such business negotiations is estimated at $500 million, based on the feedback received from Pakistani companies and foreign buyers themselves.

The gems and jewellery sector was able to get orders worth $20 million, while a large number of serious buyers are visiting factory premises in Lahore, Sialkot and Faisalabad for further negotiations.
A Russian buyer has contacted Forward Sports and to discuss the prospects of supplying footballs for the next football world cup in Russia. A Bangladeshi firm has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) worth $2 million with Sialkot based firm, Malik Sports.
Japanese companies have shown an interest to invest $25 million in pharmaceuticals, organic food items and sports goods.
Over 571 leading exporters of Pakistan had setup stalls in the exhibition which was attended by more than 750 foreign buyers and importers from 77 countries, said TDAP officials.
A Dubai based company has finalised a deal with a Pakistani slaughterhouse to import meat worth AED 15 million per annum. Similarly, an Abu Dhabi based company has also struck a deal with a Pakistani slaughterhouse to import meat worth $10 million annually.
Another Dubai based supplier to the UAE government has given a contract order to purchase uniforms and office accessories worth $1 million.
A Dubai based special purpose theme based facilities is investing $4 billion in Dubai over the next three years. For this purpose, it has indicated to bring a large delegation to conclude an MoU for the supply of materials and manpower worth $1 billion over the next three years.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the Expo Pakistan 2015 on February 26 and also conferred awards to top exporters.
The Federal Commerce Minister and top TDAP officials met with almost 33 country delegations led mostly by presidents of foreign trade chambers or associations consisting of foreign buyers.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/846711/expo-pakistan-2015-business-wort...

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 15, 2015 at 9:24pm

A new international terminal at Multan airport, Pakistan, will now enable citizens to take direct international flights.
Expansion work for the new terminal, which began in 2010 during the tenure of former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, was aimed at facilitating accommodation of wide-bodied aircraft including Boeing 747 and Boeing 777, to cater to direct international passengers and cargo flights.
With 30,700m2 in covered area, the terminal has a composite steel structure with double halls, as reported by Geo TV.
Carried out in two phases, the first phase saw investment of about $2m to upgrade air side facilities including runway taxiway tracks and apron, while the second phase recieved around $7m that involved construction of new terminal building and allied facilities.
The new 10,500 feet (900 feet overrun on both sides) runway of the international terminal has a width of 150 feet (25 feet shoulders on each side). It can accommodate aircrafts such as Boeing 747, 777.
The newly designed apron will be able to handle two wide bodied and two narrow bodied aircrafts with an area of 36,356m2.
The new terminal will have four bridges out of which two have already been completed. Its new car parking will have a space for 400 vehicles.
The government hopes that the expansion will boost the exports of fruits, particularly mango, as the airport now boasts a new cargo complex with a storage capacity of 10,000 tons, reports Dawn.
Geo TV quoted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who inaugrated the terminal, as saying that since Multan was a major agricultural and industrial centre, it would greatly benefit from direct air linkage with the rest of the world which would have a positive impact on the national economy.
The airport can now cater to one million passengers annually from an initial 0.1 million. The expansion has also provisioned for cargo handling capacity which could be increased by 30,000 metric tonnes per year with the passage of time.

http://www.airport-technology.com/news/newspakistans-multan-airport...

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 14, 2015 at 7:41pm

Wikileaks confirms fears of activists against #US trade in services agreement (#TISA) with countries incl. #pakistan https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59220

WikiLeaks released 17 secret documents from the Trade In Service Agreement (TISA) negotiations on June 3. The documents have confirmed the fears of campaigners around the world that TISA is designed to benefit corporations at the expense of workers and the general public.

TISA is being negotiated between the US, European Union, Australia, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Taiwan, Uruguay, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Turkey, Pakistan and Paraguay. These countries make up about two-thirds of global GDP.

The secretive talks began in 2012 when a group of countries — giving themselves the Orwellian name of “Really Good Friends of Services” — became unhappy with negotiations in the World Trade Organisation, in which poorer countries were demanding more equality and a focus on development and public interest.

Corporate wish list

Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) said on June 3: “The TISA is exposed as a developed countries’ corporate wish lists for services which seeks to bypass resistance from the global South to this agenda inside the WTO, and to secure an agreement on services without confronting the continued inequities on agriculture, intellectual property, cotton subsidies, and many other issues.”

TISA aims to liberalise services industries, including transport, telecommunications and finances. Services make up a large part of the economies of the negotiating countries, even the poorer ones — nearly 80% in the US and EU and 53% in Pakistan.

This leak follows WikiLeaks' release of the TISA Financial Services Annex in June last year, and the December leak of cross-border data flows, technology transfer, and net neutrality documents.

The cover page of the financial services document highlighted the extraordinary lengths that the parties would take to ensure secrecy. It said it should only be declassified “five years from entry into force of the TISA agreement or, if no agreement enters into force, five years from the close of the negotiations”.

Only Switzerland has been publishing its contributions to the negotiations.

This would leave the public unaware of the provisions in the agreement even as they were being implemented.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said on June 4: “It’s a dark day for democracy when we are dependent on leaks like this for the general public to be informed of the radical restructuring of regulatory frameworks that our governments are proposing.”

Deborah James of OWINFS said: “The secrecy charade has collapsed. TISA members trying to keep their publics in the dark as to the negative implications of the corporate TISA for financial stability, public safety, and elected officials’ democratic regulatory jurisdiction have been exposed to the light of day, in the largest leak of secret trade negotiations texts in history.”

International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) general secretary Sharan Burrow said on June 5: “Trade deals being done behind closed doors are setting up working people to lose out and aiming to concentrate yet more power and wealth in the hands of multinational corporations, at the expense of the common good.

“With big majorities of people in ITUC Global Poll results showing deep concern over the influence of major corporations, governments need to turn their attention to building a trading system that works for the common good.”

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59220

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 14, 2015 at 8:04pm

#ObamaTrade #TPP, #TISA Relaxes Visa Process for #Pakistan for #EU and #US. #tppfasttrack https://shar.es/128WnL  via @CR

One very disturbing aspect of TISA is the document uncovered by WikiLeaks revealing an entire section on immigration, referred to as “Movement of Natural Persons.”  This section discusses commitments by the parties not to place undue burdens on visas and singles out face-to-face interviews as an example of “overly burdensome procedures.” [see the footnote on page 7] At a time when we face so many national security problems, why would conservatives trust this president to squelch any visa provision threatening our security?  

And guess who is a party to TISA? 

Pakistan!  In addition to the massive immigration from Pakistan, we admitted 78,000 Pakistani nationals on some type of visa in 2013.  Do we really want to join in an agreement that could loosen restrictions on visas from Pakistan? 

Guess which other country is a part of TISA?  Mexico!  For good measure, Turkey is also a party to TISA.  What could go wrong?

There is a lot of hype being thrown around about some of these treaties, but the WikiLeaks document on TISA is very believable because service industries, the tourism industry in particular – hate all restrictions on visas.  Their opposition is certainly understandable, but that is the price we must pay when scrutinizing visas from volatile and dangerous parts of the world. 

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 14, 2015 at 8:47pm

The problem with TISA, as it’s currently being negotiated, is that under its terms, America (and any other signatory nation) would be prohibited from controlling which nation stores your personal data.  Let’s say you keep your medical records stored in the cloud with a Google application.  Right now, your medical data has to be stored within the United States, with all its privacy protections.  But under TISA, it won’t have to be.  Google could outsource its data storage to, say, Pakistan, and you would have to rely on the government of Pakistan to protect your privacy.  That ought to concern you.

The key language in TISA is this: “No Party may require a service supplier, as a condition for supplying a service or investing in its territory, to: (a) use computing facilities located in the Party’s territory.”

Your data, in other words, could be stored anywhere, and subject to any level of protection the host country believes it should have.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/06/can_you_trust_other_cou... 
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 16, 2015 at 5:11pm

Although facing institutional and capacity constraints as in many developing countries, Pakistan has been actively involved in the GATS negotiations by pursuing a strategy of “critical engagement” recognising the positive role that services liberalisation can play by improving the competitiveness of the goods sector and other services, as well as increasing export opportunities and improving the efficiency of domestic services. Pakistan has received several requests from its trading partners and has also tabled some. In order for Pakistan to strengthen both the multilateral and bilateral negotiating process for services, the study suggests the formalisation of a “bottom-up” consultation mechanism incorporating national stakeholders.

The present study, produced in collaboration with the Lahore University of Management Sciences, identifies construction and related engineering services, architecture, engineering and integrated engineering services, energy services and environmental services as priority sectors, and the temporary movement of natural persons (Mode 4) as a priority mode of supply for Pakistan. The construction sector, which represents a fundamental activity in Pakistan with strong forward and backward linkages, is seen to have potential import and export interest. Further liberalisation in the environmental services sector, including waste collection and recycling, would also benefit Pakistan. However, removal of existing restrictions on Mode 4 is seen to be of the greatest potential interest to Pakistan. This study comes at an opportune time for Pakistan in implementing concerted measures for macroeconomic stabilisation and structural reforms as its economy advances towards a higher degree of openness and export orientation. In this context, it provides a timely backstopping analysis for the definition of its negotiating interests in bilateral, regional and multilateral negotiations.

http://www.ictsd.org/themes/services/research/opportunities-and-ris...

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 16, 2015 at 8:52pm

Excerpts of Economic Survey of Pakistan 2014-15:

The share of the services sector has reached to 58.8 percent in 2014-15. Services sector contains
six sub-sectors including: Transport, Storage and Communication; Wholesale and Retail Trade;
Finance and Insurance; Housing Services (Ownership of Dwellings); General Government
Services (Public Administration and Defense); and Other Private Services (Social Services).
 The Services sector has witnessed a growth rate of 4.95 percent as compared to 4.37 percent last
year. The growth performance in services sector is broad based, all components contributed
positively in growth, Finance and Insurance at 6.1 percent, General Government Services at 9.4
percent, Housing Services at 4.0 percent, Other Private Services at 5.9 percent, Transport, Storage
and Communication at 4.2 percent and Wholesale and Retail Trade at 3.4 percent.

The agriculture sector accounts for 20.9 percent of GDP and 43.5 percent of employment, the
sector has strong backward and forward linkages. The agriculture sector has four sub-sectors
including: crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry.
 The industrial sector contributes 20.30 percent in GDP; it is also a major source of tax revenues
for the government and also contributes significantly in the provision of job opportunities to the
labour force.
 Industrial sector continued growth process and recorded growth at 3.62 percent as compared to
4.45 percent last year.
 The manufacturing is the most important sub-sector of the industrial sector comprising 65.4
percent share in the overall industrial sector. Growth of manufacturing is registered at 3.17
percent compared to the growth of 4.46 percent last year.
 Manufacturing has three sub-components; namely the Large-Scale Manufacturing (LSM) with the
share of 80 percent, Small Scale Manufacturing with the share of 13 percent and Slaughtering
with the share of 7 percent.
 Small scale manufacturing witnessed growth at 8.24 percent against the growth of 8.29 percent
last year and slaughtering growth is recorded at 3.32 percent as compared to 3.40 percent last
year.
 LSM has registered the growth of 2.38 percent as compared to the growth of 3.99 percent last
year.
 The share of construction in industrial sector is 12 percent and is one of the potential components
of industries. The construction sector has registered a growth of 7.05 percent against the growth
of 7.25 percent of last year. 


http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapters_15/Highlights.pdf

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 17, 2015 at 10:44am

#Pakistan’s trade deficit of $22b in FY15 almost equals $19 billion remitted by diaspora http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/?p=428958 via @ePakistanToday

Pakistan’s merchandise trade deficit surged by 10.68 per cent to $22.095 billion in 2014-15 from $19.963 billion in the preceding fiscal year, according to the data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

Exports have been witnessing a falling trend since July 2014. However, imports rebounded which was reflected in higher volumes of machinery, food products, transport, agriculture, chemicals and textile groups.

The government has projected a trade deficit target of $17.2 billion for the fiscal year.

An official report reveals that the trade deficit witnessed in 2014-15 was the highest since 1980-81. The second highest trade deficit was recorded at $21.271 billion in 2011-12, mainly driven by imports of consumer goods and higher international crude prices.

The import bill reached $45.98 billion in 2014-15 as compared to $45.073 billion in the previous year, an increase of 2.01pc. Its target for the year was projected at $44.2 billion. In June 2015, the imports volume reached $4.394 billion as compared to $4.318 billion in the same month last year, an increase of 1.76pc.

Monthly imports, during the year, averaged at $3.8 billion as compared to $3.758 billion in 2013-14. Around 50pc of Pakistan imports were originated from just a few countries like China, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, India, Indonesia, etc.

During the fiscal year, imports from China increased sharply to 23pc from 17pc a year ago.

The trade imbalance in favour of China is highly alarming. Free Trade Agreements signed with some of the countries appear to have been playing a major role for this imbalance. By and large, the relative shares of imports from other countries have remained almost the same.

On the other hand, exports fell by 4.88pc to $23.885 billion during the period under review as compared to $25.11 billion a year ago, the highest ever export figure recorded as of yet. In June 2015, the export proceeds fell to $2.016 billion as against $2.018 billion in the same month last year.

Monthly exports averaged at $1.997 billion as against $2.098 billion during 2013-14.

The country’s exports have been stagnant at $24-25 billion for the last few years.

According to a UN study, covering a 30-year period (1980-2011), India’s share of world exports improved from 0.43pc to 1.7pc; Bangladesh’s from 0.04pc to 0.14pc; Malaysia’s from 0.74pc to 1.34pc and Thailand’s from 0.37pc to 1.35pc.

Pakistan’s share, however, remained stagnant at 0.15pc.

Since January 2014, when duty-free access to the European Union under the GSP+ scheme was granted, Pakistan’s exports to Europe spiked by 21pc, but this was at the cost of other markets.

Pakistan’s exports base and markets are extremely narrow.

Over 55pc of its exports earnings are contributed by the cotton group alone. Leather, synthetic made-ups and rice contribute about 14pc of total exports. Unfortunately, these items are relatively low value-added products.

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