Pakistan—Regional Economic Integration Activity (PREIA)

PREIA worked to increase Pakistan’s access to regional and international markets and is a key economic growth project that stands to benefit numerous Pakistani businesses. This project worked to: improve Pakistan’s business enabling environment so that policies, laws, and regulations are adaptable and more reflective of on-the-ground needs; and improve Pakistan’s capacity to access regional markets by identifying bottlenecks and practical solutions for increasing export efficiency.

Additionally, PREIA’s Activity Fund helped local organizations build capacities to support trade reform and modernization and, subsequently, to utilize these capacities in support of local stakeholders.

Sample Activities

• Increase the capacity of Pakistani institutions and actors to assess policy, negotiate agreements, improve regulations, and engage with stakeholders on trade.
• Improve government capacity to better analyze economic and business opportunities that emerge.
• Strengthen dialogues among the business community, academia, media, government policymakers, and other stakeholders.
• In coordination with other U.S. Government and donor-financed efforts, support the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) with the development and implementation of its Customs Reform Roadmap.
• Strengthen the capacity of FBR/Customs and other border control agencies to implement global best practices and improve compliance.

Select Results

• Provided technical and organizational assistance to the office of the Speaker of National Assembly to organize the Pakistan Afghanistan Trade and Investment Forum in 2020 in Islamabad, which included participants from both Pakistan and Afghanistan and which succeeded in developing a consensus in principle on reforms to improve Pak-Afghan transit and trade.
• Delivered national training on the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures to stakeholders from the Government of Pakistan, exporters, and agriculturalists.
• Supported the Ministry of Commerce for the 7th Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Coordination Authority (APPTA) meeting by organizing consultations with stakeholders and mapping the status of APTTA implementation.
• Completed preliminary assessment of the Ministry of Commerce’s practices for evaluating the performance of commercial officers and made recommendations for improved monitoring and evaluation.
• Organized working groups in Burban and Islamabad to finalize Pakistan’s Electronic Commerce Framework; sessions allowed stakeholders to assess draft policy, present and discuss findings, and recommend improvements of institutional, legal, and financial mechanisms for electronic commerce.
• Collaborated with the International Trade Centre, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the World Customs Organization to organize a three-day workshop in Islamabad on the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement.