Mr Navratan Samdria, Chairman, Federation of Indian Export Organizations, and Leader of the Delegation, Mr K K Jain, Vice Chairman and Deputy Leader of the Delegation, Mr A R Ghanshyam, Commercial Consul, Indian High Commission, Members of the delegation, Fellow industrialists, Ladies and Gentlemen:

On behalf of the members of the Executive Committee and on my own behalf, I welcome you to SITE ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRY, the representative body of industries in the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate. This estate encompasses an area of nearly 4,500 acres and is the oldest industrial estate of the country. It is a measure of the importance of SITE and the role assigned to it in the national economic life that the Father of the Nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah himself laid the foundation stone of the first industrial undertaking in SITE. Today, the vision of Quaid-e-Azam has become a reality in the form of SITE, which has provided the complex but crucial impetus to the rapid industrial growth. There are now over 2200 industrial units of varying sizes functioning in the estate. These include textiles, heavy mechanical, beverages, automobiles, silk, oil, soap, foodstuffs, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, glass, cigarettes, paints, ready-made garments, etc.

These industries are working ceaselessly day and night producing a wide variety of goods while providing valuable services for the community. It is estimated that over Rs 150 billion (US$ 3.0 billion) is invested in SITE and the total revenue from this estate in terms of goods, services, taxes, duties, and wages, etc is Rs. 1500 million daily. Equally important is the fact that about four hundred thousand people have found much-needed jobs through direct employment while thousands are indirect beneficiaries of this estate.

SITE, thus, is the largest employer of industrial workers in the country. In addition to these benefits, SITE industries generate the highest amount of revenue than any other industrial area and pay to the government excise duty, sales tax, custom duty, corporate tax, income tax, property tax, octroi, education cess etc. Karachi contributes 72% of the total revenue of the country out of which the share of SITE is nearly half. Hence, this estate provides one-third of the entire collection of the Treasury.

SITE ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRY was formed in May 1963 and registered as a Town Association. The affairs of the Association are directed and managed by an elected Executive Committee and a permanent secretariat. The Executive Committee consists of a Chairman, a Senior Vice Chairman, a Vice Chairman, and nine Members of the Executive Committee. Then there are Chairmen of the various Sub-Committees. The Secretariat functions under a full-time, experienced Secretary with support and auxiliary staff members. There is also a Legal Advisory Cell under a Legal Advisor set up for assistance to members.

The Association has come to acquire the position of a strong and forceful representative for SITE industries and it has significantly contributed towards the well being of the industrial units. The representative capacity of the Association is well accepted by all concerned. The government agencies having close and direct interest in SITE have acknowledged permanent representation of the Association. The Association is rightly referred to as the "Voice of Industry". The Association has been one of the most active organizations and it has spearheaded the cause of trade and industry with fervor and zeal. Its representatives are part of most of the important committees, task forces, and on the boards of infrastructure providers. A former Chairman is a Director of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation and also of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board. Its members are Trustees of the Employee Old-Age Benefits Institution and the Sindh Employees Social Security Institution. A former Chairman is a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan. Furthermore, the present President, Senior Vice President, and a member of the Managing Committee, of Karachi Chamber are former Chairmen. Moreover, the Association has founded the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee, which is still managed by industrialists and traders and which is considered as the Guardian Angel of Karachi. The Association has also established the SITE Crime Monitor Cell in its offices, which was inaugurated by the Sindh Governor in January this year. It is the only Association to provide One-Window Collection Cell for three directorates of SESSI. It is the only Association in Pakistan to recognize its ISO-9000 certified members by highlighting their names in brass letters on a large board at a prominent place in the offices.

The SITE Association is very active in skill development and vocational training. Recently, the Sindh Governor formed the Institute Management Committees of the government-run technical institutes. One of the largest is the Government College of Technology in SITE that is now being managed by representatives of the Association. The Chairman of SITE is the Chairman of the IMC of GCT. There are two other Karachi institutes that will primarily be managed by IMCs having SITE industrialists as members. SITE industrialists have also taken the lead and are managing the Skill Development Council, Karachi which is a joint project of the Employers’ Federation of Pakistan, ILO, World Bank, and the Ministry of Labor, Government of Pakistan, and which has been instrumental in training of large number of young people, mostly from the under-privileged class.

The SITE is managed by the SITE Ltd, which also administers many other estates all over the province of Sindh. The Association is proud of the fact that four of its Chairmen are Directors on the Board of SITE Ltd. The Association, alongwith SITE Ltd and the Sindh Government, is setting up a fifty-acre software park called Indus Technology Park on the Super Highway. The list of achievements of the Association can go on and on.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Coming to the visit of this large and important delegation, I would like to state here that we are grateful to our guests for keeping SITE in their itinerary. The reason we are all assembled here is to know one another on a person-to-person basis, to explore possibilities for bilateral cooperation, to discuss modes of cooperation, and to make friends and partners. It is a good augury that goodwill has already developed during the stay of the delegation here in Karachi.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Over the past many years, whenever we used to read the newspapers, "trade" between Pakistan and India usually meant that the troops on both sides of the border indulged in their favorite activity: "trade fire". Today, when we read or hear about Pak-India trade, we get excited because we now mean the pursuit of trade, because the industrial and trading community of India and Pakistan are not in the business of politics but in the politics of business. The initiative taken by Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to sit on the Table of Peace to chalk out a vision for the future, to transcend from the rhetoric of hatred and jingoism, and to establish Confidence Building Measures, has brought about a fundamental resurgence in the enthusiasm of industrialists and businessmen. The "Bus Diplomacy" leading towards the signing of the Lahore Declaration on February 21, 1999 will hopefully be the harbinger of increased trade and cooperation.

Ladies and Gentlemen: There are three primary distinctions in the Indo-Pak relations: The economic regime, the political dimension, and the legal characteristic. The advent of a preferential trading system depends a lot on these three distinctions and there is a need to justify their importance when any radical shift in the present policy is contemplated. The core political issue hampering the full normalization of the trade relations is the volatile issue of Kashmir, an issue that has engulfed the conscience of people in both the nations for the past five decades. The Kashmir imbroglio has overshadowed other positive initiatives that could have been instrumental in the expansion of trade. The legal implications are more attuned towards the conditionalities of the World Trade Organization and the Charter of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. Under the WTO, both the nations are bound to grant Most Favored Nation status to member countries. India, of course, has complied but Islamabad has yet to take this practical step. The South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement is yet to become a workable guiding force.

Ladies and Gentlemen: We, therefore, have to seriously delve into the economic scenario and how this can become a reality. There are so many facets of the liberalization of the trade regime between the two countries, that one is amazed and saddened by the lost opportunities during the past decades. The two countries are neighbors and linked by a modern road and rail network, besides frequent flights by air. The two major ports, Mumbai and Karachi, are within a couple of days voyage distance. There is an obvious increase in contact, rapport, and friendship among the entrepreneurs on both sides. Thus, it can be safely stated that the primary groundwork for opening up of trade activities already exists and just needs the desired nudge to come into forceful action.

Ladies and Gentlemen: A prominent World Bank economist from Pakistan, Shahid Javed Burki, once remarked that it would be in Pakistan’s interest to trade with India. He said "I bet my salary if there is trade with India under the WTO, Pakistan will be gaining rather than losing." The late Dr. Mahbub-ul-Haq, a distinguished Pakistany economist and former Finance Minister, had favorably endorsed trade between India and Pakistan and felt that it was in the interest of both the countries if goods and services were allowed to move easily between the two countries. The SITE Association fervently subscribes to the idea of granting MFN status to India. Unfortunately, the concept of MFN is not understood by many, and this has created undue consternation among the opponents of trade liberalization. We are sanguine that the policymakers in the corridors of power in Islamabad can develop the political will to take the pragmatic decision of granting MFN status to India.

Ladies and Gentlemen: We have to accept the established fact that there are many sectors in which India has a quantitative as well as qualitative edge over Pakistan. We have to accept the established fact that India is producing the state-of-art machinery and equipment under license from foreign manufacturers, and Pakistany industrialists can take the advantage of proximity and price differential to procure brand name machinery or equipment. We have to accept the established fact that India is a 950 million strong market and there could be access to this huge marketplace for the domestic Pakistany industrialists. We have to accept the established fact that the official trade both ways is about US$ 250 million while it is being estimated that the undocumented trade is in the ballpark figure of more than US$ two billion. There are lots of avenues to enhance the bilateral trade regime and these must be encashed promptly.

There is an imperative need to initiate Confidence Building Measures among the businessmen and industrialists. This will give a jumpstart to the local industrialists and traders to increase the trade at a mutually beneficial level. It is, therefore, proposed that the governments of the two countries venture to have separate channels for economic activity and for political issues. There is no reason why this cannot be maintained. After all, there are many such examples in the global scene where there has been massive trade activity even though the two countries may have had fundamental differences of opinion over certain issues, especially political problems. Pakistan has no diplomatic relations with Taiwan; yet we imports goods worth millions of dollars from Taipei. It is further proposed that instead of a positive list of items that can be traded, there should be a negative list of goods that may not be allowed under the present circumstances. This, we believe, is a more practical approach. It is again proposed that under the WTO, Pakistan should immediately grant MFN status to India.

Ladies and Gentlemen: There is one significant area in which we are looking for technical support and cooperation, and that is the area of software development. India is leapfrogging in software exports, and last year India exported in excess of US$ 2.6 billion. The Indian High Commissioner remarked last Saturday during his visit to SITE, that by the year 2010, India’s software exports will touch the US$ 40 billion mark. Pakistan can benefit extensively if Indian software companies link up with Pakistany counterparts in designated cooperation agreements. Pakistany textile-related industries could shop for their plant-level requirements by visiting or establishing contact with the machinery manufacturers. Moreover, there is a wide range of dyes and intermediates that can be purchased at favorable prices from Indian manufacturers. We are very interested in receiving transfer of technology, in accessing new concepts and ideas, and in developing modalities for profitable joint ventures. The list of areas of Pakistany imports from India is long and worth looking.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Pakistany manufacturers in the textile trade can also find a large and receptive market for their goods, Pakistan has excellent quality in many categories, such as in home textiles, in processed food, in other agricultural goods, and in surgical, sports, and leather products. A new market of nearly a billion consumers, especially when we have a relatively small market where we cannot make heavy investments, is reason enough to lobby for the opening up of borders for trade.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The five decades of mutually devastating, firebrand-induced hostility have led to a large outlay of scarce resources towards building martial behemoths, towards diverting valuable assets to detonate image-building nuclear devices, and towards denying quality lives to the multitude of citizens. The race for military domination and the diversification of social development assets to achieve this stated superiority has enhanced the ranks of the poor in the sub-continent. Illiteracy is endemic, malnourished populace is found aplenty, and poverty is prevalent in many sectors. In short, it seems that this is a very deprived region where human value is minimal whereas military importance is so eminent.

Ladies and Gentlemen: There should be an unified voice among the industrialists and businessmen all over Pakistan and India for demanding liberalization of trade and for opening of new vistas of cooperation. The mad rush for military power should end and that the total concern of the political hierarchies in both nations should be to mitigate the lot of the citizens. The people must be provided basic health services, the children must be beneficiaries of top-class education, the elderly must be recipients of tender care and attention, and the workers must be placed in secured and remunerative positions.

Ladies and Gentlemen: We, the People, must impress upon the detractors of cooperation and trade, that hostility, animosity, and enmity must end so that the contentious issues are resolved in conciliatory environments, and that agitational politics will keep the two countries in perpetual bondage of regressive mechanisms. The time has come to demand peace, progress, and prosperity for the denizens of the subcontinent. Nothing less ! The future of the two countries depends on this demand. That is the path we have to tread on, with confidence and force. Let us embark on that journey, NOW!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen: I thank the delegation for their presence here this afternoon and I am sure they will have a fruitful and beneficial meeting with our members. Thank you very much. Long Live Friendship of Indo-Pak industrialists and businessmen!!

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