The Committee met here on Wednesday with Haji Ghulam Ali in the chair and approved the bill. Committee members gave different suggestions. Senator Addul Haseeb Khan of MQM while opposing the bill argued that TDAP should not be headed by the Minister for Commerce. He argued that inclusion of Commerce Minister as Chairman TDAP and Secretary Commerce as the board members would make no difference, adding that all the authorities are functioning independently, while the TDAP would not be able to function independently in the presence of minister and secretary.
The National Assembly of Pakistan has already passed the bill on December 17 and sent it to the Senate for approval. Now the bill would be tabled in the Senate. Abdul Qadir Qazi, Additional Secretary Ministry of Commerce, gave a detailed presentation to the committee members.
Director General TDAP, Anis Alam, gave forceful arguments in favour of the Bill and requested the members to pass it so that the organisation should work under the law. Haji Ghulam Ali, Chairman of the Committee, said that the Board of Directors (BoD) of the TADP would have equal representation from the private and public sector to check the government's interference in the matters of TDAP. He said that the government should formulate business friendly policies keeping in view stiff competition on the global level.
Senator Zafar Iqbal said that the committee should pass the bill after detailed study, saying that the law was being formulated for 180 million people of Pakistan. "The private sector should be given enough space to make things better," he said. The TDAP was established in 2006 under a presidential ordinance, which lapsed in 2009. The National Assembly has already approved the TDAP bill 2012. The committee was informed that the country has the potential of increasing its exports to $100 billion. The committee members while criticising commercial attaches' role in promoting Pakistan's business in foreign countries said that they have totally failed while commercial attaches of other countries were working to promote their products.