Pakistan and the United States of America (USA) are to hold negotiations to revive the apparently "dead" Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (Tifa) in the last week of current month, top of the agenda will be Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) in the battered Tribal Areas, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and some parts of Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan.
Pakistani textile industry has already expressed its concern over the conditions attached by the US limiting the proposed duty-free access of textile products to the ROZs, located in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. "Law and order situation, Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and child labour are amongst the other main concerns of the US in Pakistan. Commerce Secretary Suleman Ghani is leading an official delegation, which is expected to leave here on April 25.
The Tifa, which aimed at expanding bilateral economic ties, including trade, was signed in June 2003 during the visit of former President Pervez Musharraf to Washington. But after the passage of six years, the agreement is still not effective due to reservations on the procedural issues like Intellectual Property Rights, human rights, law and order and child labour.
"We will forward some positive proposals to fine tune the RoZs Bill, Bilateral Investment Treaty (Bit), agriculture and other related sectors," said Suleman Ghani while talking to Business Recorder. Ghani was seen pushing the Director General, Health, who visited his office, to finalise data protection law, which would be placed at the negotiating table.
In reply to a question, he said that negotiations would be held between Pakistani team and United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Ron Kirk. The office of USTR is responsible for the development and oversight of US trade policy, including strategy, negotiation, implementation and enforcement of multilateral, regional/bilateral and sector-specific trade agreements.
These include the ongoing Doha development agenda multilateral trade negotiations, as well as 17 countries with which the United States has free trade agreements (FTAs). Pakistan was hoping that the Tifa would eventually lead to FTA between the two countries.
But neither at that time nor in all the years since then has been any assurance from the US side despite more than a dozen visits by the Commerce Minister to Washington. "We will apprise the US about our economic and financial needs, especially when we have lost 35 billion dollars due to war on terror," said the Commerce Secretary, who is about to visit the US for the first time as Commerce Secretary.
This year''s expenditure has been calculated at Rs 98 billion. Answering another question, Suleman Ghani said that ROZs would spread over Tribal Areas, AJK and bordering areas of Balochistan for which necessary infrastructure would be developed, besides other packages to the industry. However, textile sector, which is believed to be the real beneficiary of the ROZs, is expressing doubts of any benefit.
"How can such a plan be successful if neither any garment factory has been established in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan nor do the people of these areas have any know-how about manufacturing textile and apparel," said one of the textile sector stakeholders.
According to the Commerce Secretary, the Tifa is just a facilitator not some kind of authority, which finalises agreements. For instance, he said, if Pakistan and the US had to negotiate on Bilateral Investment Treaty, then the Board of Investment (BoI) has to come forward to talk with the concerned forum of the US government.