Talking to newsmen, he said that India is a very big market and Pakistan can easily penetrate in this market as quality of Pak products in general and textile in particular is much better than India. Lakhani emphasised the need that India must remove trade barriers created in the way of Pakistan trade with India by its custom and other related departments. He said that trade should be done on equality basis.
Citing example of exhibition held in August in Mumbai this year, he said he had participated in this exhibition but the Indian custom authorities did not allow clearance of goods on time. When the goods were cleared the exhibition was over and the goods were sold in loss.
Arif Lakhani also advised policy-markers to take into account that policies should encourage export of quality products and value-added products and discourage export of raw material. Those who are exporting value-added goods should be encouraged, he added. He further pleaded that cost of manufacturing in Pakistan is higher and efforts should be made to bring it down so that goods produced should be competitive in international market which ultimately increase exports and fetch foreign exchange.