In its Asian Economic Integration Report 2015, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has pointed out procedural delays in clearance of trade consignments in Pakistan. The study says that the time consumed for the processing of documents, customs procedures and inland transportation safely take an average 5.9 days for exports and 12.3 days for import, indicating that there is a need to improve process of documentation both for import and export to cut short the time. According to the ADB data, the lowest time consumption for import and export is 0.2-day in Bhutan and the highest is in Afghanistan where it takes 12.1-day to clear a consignment for export and 18 days for import. The ADB study indicates the time consumed for import and export of goods through ocean transport, including process of documentation to facilitate a transaction in Pakistan is one of the slowest in the region. The inordinate delay is attributed to documentation process and procedural rigmarole as well as the time consumed in inland transportation of goods from business cities to the port cities.
The study says that taking European Union as the benchmark, the country’ score on the Logistics Performance Index has risen to 73.1 percent in 2015 from 66 percent in 2010.Though procedure of export and import is getting difficult in India as its logistics performance decelerated from 81.2 percent in 2010, it still has made a lot of improvement in its documentation process and has scored 79.7 percent on the European bench mark, which is the highest in the region. India has also efficiently improved border control and customs process, transport and trade-related infrastructure, competitively priced shipments and timeliness of shipments.The ADB calls for development of special economic zones,which can work as a driving force to increase trade and investment in the country. Many Asian countries are experiencing a slowdown in trade, but conductive business environment and effective policies can accelerate the pace of import and export process in Pakistan.The government has signed an agreement with Chinese firm to establish an export processing zone in Gwadar and such zones are needed to be established along with the China Pakistan Economic corridor.
Pakistan is facing challenges in establishing special economic zones due to various political and geographical reasons, including lack of government interest and absence of an incentives package,difficulty in fulfilling legal requirements and absence of an effective one window operation at micro and macro levels to facilitate investors. There is also need to improve capacity building of the officials of the agencies which are associated with import and export.
