GSP-Plus scheme's benefits: Pakistan needs to comply with 27 conventions: official

Pakistan is unlikely to benefit from European Union's (EU) Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) plus scheme until it complies with 27 mandatory international conventions to become eligible for duty access to EU market.
Officials told Business Recorder that Pakistan had recently withdrawn most reservation against two conventions ie, International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Convention Against Torture (CAT).
A delegation, comprising members of European Parliament namely Chair of the South Asia delagtion Ms Jean Lambert MEP, Agricultural and Economic Policy specialists Mr. Phil Bennion, Lass Weigmark Head of EU delegation, Committee on Industry, Research and Energy Salvador Sedo, Administrator Delegation Secretariat Philipee Kamaris and Political Advisor Ms Sabine Meyer met with senior Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Fahim on Wednesday and discussed matters of mutual interest and ways of enhancing trade between Pakistan and EU.
"EU delegation emphasised proper compliance of 27 international conventions mandatory for becoming eligible for duty free excess through GSP plus scheme for EU", said an official statement issued after the meeting.
These conventions pertain to human rights, good governance, labour rights, environment and narcotics control. The Commerce Minister informed the meeting that Pakistan had ratified these conventions.
Senior Commerce Minister requested that members of European Parliament may use their influence for early legislation of trade concessions in EU parliament, whose meeting is scheduled to be held in September, 2012.
The sources said, the EU delegation appreciated the role played by Pakistan Mission in Brussels and Pakistan Mission in WTO Geneva in resolution of most of the contentious issues aimed at paving the way for expeditious progress on unilateral trade package and proposed GSP plus.
The EU delegation appreciated the liberalisation of trade between Pakistan and India. It will not only enhance bilateral trade but also be helpful in improving political relations between the two countries, added EU delegation.
The EU is Pakistan's single largest trading partner accounting for 25 per cent of Pakistan's total exports and 16 per cent of total imports.
Despite being beneficiary of the EU's General GSP scheme, products of export interest of Pakistan ie textile and clothing face high tariffs in the EU market. For textiles, average GSP tariff is 6.4 per cent and for clothing average GSP tariff is 9.6 per cent. Pakistan argues that these high tariffs constitute a serious obstacle to Pakistan's market access to the EU, especially when many of Pakistan's competitors already have duty-free access to the EU market and India was likely to finalise its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU.
Pakistan has officially welcomed the new GSP plus scheme in which the import vulnerability threshold for GSP-plus has been raised from 1 per cent to 2 per cent. Pakistan's total GSP covered exports to EU are 1.20 per cent of its total GSP covered imports.