EU mission tells govt to strictly enforce child, labour rights

Delegation is in Pakistan to assess implementation of UN conventions

ISLAMABAD: A European Union assessment mission on the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus has urged Pakistan to strictly implement laws that protect human rights, including fundamental rights of the child and bonded labour.

In a meeting with Federal Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir, the four-member mission, however, voiced its satisfaction over the progress made to introduce legislations for the elimination of child and bonded labour from the country, an official privy to the meeting told The Express Tribune.

However, at the same time, the mission pressed the government to ensure that the laws were enforced strictly.

The Treaty Implementation Cell (TIC) of the commerce ministry, led by Dastgir, briefed the mission on the achievements made in the areas of human, labour, women and child rights, climate change and fight against corruption and narcotics.

The EU delegation, led by European External Actions Services Adviser Gus Houttuin, is visiting Pakistan to assess the implementation of 27 UN conventions covered under the GSP Plus agreement.

GSP Plus is a unique system of duty and tax concessions developed by the EU and no other market in the world offers such liberal concessions. These include duty-free access for more than 90% products produced by a few developing countries in return for the commitment to adopting and implementing principles of good governance and sustainable development.

The commerce minister told the delegation that GSP Plus had helped Pakistan’s exports to the EU as they rose by an impressive 34% in 2014, 10% in 2015 and over 8% in the first five months of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015.

He called the EU the largest market for Pakistani goods in the world and under GSP Plus, Pakistani goods had got duty-free access to 28 member states of the bloc. “At a time when many of our competitors are rapidly entering into free trade agreements with the EU, the significance of GSP Plus for Pakistan has become even more pronounced,” he added.

The minister insisted that ever since the return of democracy in Pakistan, it had been the top priority of successive governments to ensure that benefits of development through trade were shared with people of the country.

The delegation was told that the prime minister had set up the TIC to give top priority to the treaty obligations of Pakistan towards the UN conventions.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2016.

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