'Pakistan embarks upon export promotion programme'

Pakistan has embarked upon an aggressive export promotion programme through bilateral, regional, free and preferential trade agreements on wider scale, said Asif Shah, Federal Secretary, Commerce here on Monday evening.
In a meeting with members of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA), Shah said that presently, nearly 60 percent of world's international trade was being conducted under bilateral or regional arrangements.
More than 300 such agreements have either been completed are in final stages, the world over. Elaborating the agreements signed by Pakistan, the secretary commerce informed that Pakistan had signed Early Harvest Programme (EHP) with China effective from January 2006.
Under this programme duties on Pakistani exportable goods were being reduced in phases and at the end of 3 years these duties would either be zero-rated or 5 percent maximum in certain cases. He said that EHP was part of a comprehensive free trade agreement with China.
The secretary commerce said that similar agreements had also been entered into with Malaysia & Sri Lanka while agreement with Indonesia was in the final stages.
He further informed that agreement with USA under Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) was almost complete and would be finalised within a short period of time.
He pointed out that BIT agreement was imperative to gain access to American markets for Pakistani exports and would pave the way for Free Trade Agreement with America.
Regarding European markets, he said that Pakistan was aggressively pursuing the anti-dumping case and the European Union (EU) have agreed in principle to reduce the anti-dumping duty from 13.1 percent to 5.8 percent.
However, the matter would be finalised after approval from the Council of Commissioners of EU. He further said that after its approval from the federal cabinet implementation of Safta agreement would start from July 1, 2006, adding that similar trade agreements would also be finalised with Asean.
He also informed that a preferential trade agreement with Iran had also been finalised under which fruits are being exported to Iran. He exhorted the Pakistani exporters to avail these agreements to promote their exports.
Earlier, Haroon Rashid Puri, Acting Chairman of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) welcoming the guest pin pointed the problems confronting the exporters, including export finance mark-up, high cost of production, sales tax refund, duty drawback, freight subsidy claims and protocol passes.
The secretary commerce assured the exporters to help solve their problems. Later, the secretary visited the Textile Testing Laboratory and termed it as a very important and appreciable effort of the Association towards promotion of exports.