‘Pakistani exports to Turkey will be even less than last year’

HYDERABAD:

Pakistan and Turkey might not be able to accomplish the bilateral trade target of $2 billion by the end of this year, said Turkey’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Mustafa Babur Hizlan.

“Pakistani exports to Turkey will be even less than last year,” the Ambassador told reporters at Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz leader Raheela Magsi’s house Saturday. He painted a bleak picture because the governments have not signed a preferential trade agreement and the flow of Pakistani textile goods into Turkey has also been tightened.

During his visit to Pakistan in May 2012, the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyap Erdogan, said that he would support efforts to increase the volume of imports, exports and bilateral investments between the two countries. President Asif Ali Zardari went to Ankara last month and championed the preferential trade agreement. The governments kept iterating that their aim was to take the bilateral trade to $2 billion mark.

Without specifying the stumbling blocks, Ambassador Hilzan said that steps to achieve this goal had not been taken. He said that Turkey is implementing measures to stem the import of textiles from countries with which it does not have a free or preferential trade agreement. “Both countries have excellent relations at the government and administration levels but our trade relations less than what they ought to be,” he said.

But there is a silver lining. The Ambassador mentioned the recent implementation of the Currency Swap Agreement. Under this agreement, the State Bank of Pakistan and Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey will lend traders the Turkish lira and Pakistan rupee for transactions in a particular denomination. The traders will then repay the loan using earnings through foreign trade.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th, 2012.