Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has approved the establishment of a Trade Facilitation Board (TFB) under his chairmanship. The board’s stated objectives are to address all the non-tariff issues affecting cross-border trade, develop a trade promotion framework, and establish a trade facilitation index. The board has been advised to work “on an emergency basis” to improve port capacity and create a working group to improve coordination, regulatory compliance, and SME’s inclusion in international trade.
The underlying rationale behind this is not wrong. Pakistan’s trade performance has deteriorated over the years. Between 2016 and 2018, Pakistan’s rank on the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index fell from rank 68 to 122 and was eventually completely excluded from the 2023 edition due to insufficient data and low stakeholder engagement. Non-tariff measures are still fragmented across the PSQCA, the Department of Plant Protection, the Department of Animal Quarantine, the FBR, and other ministries, each functioning under different laws with little coordination. Traders are subject to unnecessary documentation, discretionary licensing, and unpredictable clearance timelines. These shortcomings highlight the need for meaningful reform. However, the question is whether another board is the right fix.
Pakistan already has a National Trade and Transportation Facilitation Committee (NTTFC) established in 2001. It is designated as the country’s official National Trade Facilitation Committee by the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement Article 23.2. Its mandate is similar to the TFB’s. It also includes the Pakistan Single Window, which has merged 23 government departments, processed over 1.25 million trade declarations in fiscal year 2024-25, and recently received an Asia-Pacific Trade Facilitation Innovation Award. Additionally, there are TDAP for export promotion, the Board of Investment, the SIFC, the Ministry of Commerce’s WTO Wing, and three port agencies. Institutional architecture is not missing. It is overcrowded.
The deeper concern of TFB is its governance design. Political backing and operational leadership are different functions. Routine trade facilitation, including removing bottlenecks, coordinating agencies, and monitoring port performance, requires consistent, day-to-day attention that a PM’s schedule cannot offer. The SIFC is a cautionary example. Its Apex Committee, which is also led by the Prime Minister, was launched as a flagship initiative in 2023 but has not held a public meeting since January 2025, resulting in over 16 months of silence at the top while lower tiers continued to operate silently. A technocratic chair with a permanent secretariat would be significantly more lasting than another body bound to the PM’s schedule. What Pakistan requires is not a new board, but a revamped and empowered NTFC with a technocratic chair, a funded secretariat, mandatory meeting schedules, and public performance measures. The PSW’s integration work should be complete. NTMs should undergo sunset review. Port improvements should be implemented through long-term regulation rather than SRO-based concessions that can be revoked quickly.