ISLAMABAD, Mar 17 (APP):Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce , Abdul Razak Dawood on Thursday said the petrochemical sector was a dynamic and potential sector that could play a pivotal role in meeting needs of the domestic industrial sector.
The adviser said this while addressing Pakistan’s first ever Petrochemical symposium organized by Corporate Pakistan Group here.
“The petrochemical sector can play a significant role in the economic development of the country, which can help in the growth of various sectors, including the Agriculture and energy,” he said.
The symposium is supported by Board of Investment, Pakistan, OICCI, Pakistan Business Council, PCMA.
Razak Dawood said the government was ready to provide all possible facilities to increase production in the petrochemical sector.
He said that there was ample scope for growth in the petrochemical sector due to the partnership between the industrial sector and the public sector and the government would extend full cooperation.
He said that the government would provide all possible opportunities for all kinds of investments in petrochemicals and would welcome investors in the sector.
The adviser said that the government was now moving from traditional to non-traditional sectors in trade which would boost the country’s exports.
He said that the export market in textile was not very big in the world, and the export potential was equal to $1 trillion , while the non-traditional sector had more export potential.
The adviser said that Information Technology, agriculture, Oil and steel and petrochemicals had huge export potential in the global market.
He said that the government wanted to increase domestic exports through import substitution by focusing on the sectors.
Due to which, the government had significantly reduced the duty in these sectors through tariff rationalization, he said.
He said that there had been a significant reduction in the duty structure and which would help the industry to make Competitive products for the international market.
He said that “we used to import mobiles but now mobile manufacturing in the local market will lead to mobile exports and there will be a significant reduction in mobile imports.”
He said that the government would formulate a good policy which would help the industry a lot and increase the country’s exports.
He said that the government was moving towards export led growth andat one time we had become a trading nation.
The speakers at the symposium highlighted the potential of this segment and urged the government to give a well thought out long term and transparent policy to attract utilize the mega investment in Petrochemical sector to create jobs and provide imports substitution to help save forex reserves.
The experts and government functionaries while speaking at the inaugural session of the symposium titled ‘Petrochemicals a game changer’ spoke at length about the economy of Pakistan and how it benefited through large scale industrialization.
Muhammad Azfar Ahsan, Chairman Board Of investment said ‘Petroleum policy of Pakistan is in its final stages. Implementation of this policy will bring investment of US $3 billion in near future.
He said only by setting up the Naphta cracker plant we might get import substitution to the tune of US $ 800 million and create 50,000 direct and indirect jobs.
