German commercial consular Gudrun Haider on Tuesday assured the hosiery manufacturers-cum-exporters that the issue of duty free access to the EU market would be solved in the near future. But, she termed the signing of Free Trade Agreement with Pakistan a different issue, saying that it was a complicated matter, which always required Germany to assess the overall economic scale of the country it entered the agreement with.
However, Pakistan's political situation is not hindering the progress in this regard, she said at a meeting with the members of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA). She said that under the tax-exemption policy of the German government the Pakistani exhibitors had been exempted from taxes. To a question, Gudrun replied that Germany had issued travel advisories to its citizens on visiting Pakistan's northern areas and Peshawar City only.
About the regression in the German economy, she said that the government was making every possible effort to tackle the economic crisis that emerged with the global financial meltdown. She invited the PHMA members to utilise the expert services of the retired German experts who were assisting the other countries in various fields under the senior expert programme. Earlier, Babar Khan zonal chairman PHMA and Muhammad Khalid Mukhashi chairman of PHMA Foreign Relations Trade Delegation Sub-Committee also spoke on the occasion.