Anti-terrorism record: extension in GSP being sought in Pakistan's exports to EU

Pakistan will ask the European Union to link the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) with anti-terrorism record of a country.
Talking to newsmen at a breakfast meeting on Saturday, Commerce Secretary Tasneem Noorani said that Pakistan deserved special consideration for the extension of the GSP facility beyond December because of its role as a frontline state in the war against terrorism.
Pakistani goods would be subjected to 12.1 percent duty on entry into the EU member countries after the expiry of the GSP this year.
He said that Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar would visit Brussels by the end of that month and would hold talks with EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy on the issue of the new GDP facility for the Pakistani exports, which were allowed duty-free into the EU member states.
The Commerce Secretary said the existing GSP was based on a country's record in fighting drug menace and now was a need to evolve a duty-free category on the basis of efforts against terrorism.
He said that the point would be on top of the agenda in meetings President Pervez Musharraf would have with heads of the EU member states. The Commerce Secretary advised the industrialists to improve their productivity, quality and price structure so that they were constantly dependent on concessions from the importing countries. He said that a law was in the offing, which would eliminate discretion of the Ministry of Finance on the Export Development Fund (EDF), which every year totalled about Rs 700 million.
The Export Marketing Development Fund (EMDF), of which average total is Rs 550 million, is contributed from income through auction of the quotas.
Noorani said that most of the EMDF had been consumed in payment of the freight subsidies on the exports of new products and new markets.
The Commerce Secretary acknowledged that there were misuse of the EMDF in payment on fake invoices of the freight paid on the exports and a system was being streamlined through strict scrutiny of documents submitted with subsidy claims.
He further said that with the abolition of textile quotas, there would be no income to make the EMDF and the Ministry of Commerce would request for an annual budgetary provision to meet the expenses under the fund.
Noorani said that a law would be framed to register Pakistani products in the international market to stop incidents of fraudulent labelling, especially in case of the rice, where some foreign dealers attempted to sell Pakistani basmati in Indian packing.

The presence of such a law of products registration had become all the more necessary after the zero-rated import of basmati rice into the EU member countries because, apart from India, Thailand and even the US, could also put their claim on basmati rice, he said.
The Commerce Secretary said that a serious exercise was under way to restructure the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) whose real job should be to search new markets for products to inform the exporters about the opportunities in markets and to introduce products in the new markets.
He ruled out the possibility of disband the bureau, and said that it was not possible to terminate services of 600 employees.
They could be retrained and re-channelled to do the new job, he added.
Noorani further said the Ministry of Commerce was preparing a new strategy for selection and training of the trade officers on instructions from the Cabinet.