Trade boon: EU still pushing for flood-hit Pakistan
EU plans to grant additional aid to Pakistan by suspending import tariffs on Pakistani goods.
BRUSSELS:
The European Union (EU) is still pushing for approval from trading nations to grant trade preferences to Pakistan in the wake of devastating floods last summer, the bloc’s top trade official said on Thursday.
EU plans to grant additional aid to Pakistan by suspending import tariffs on Pakistani goods.
]EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said, “At short notice, trade concessions are the only way to do something for Pakistan.”
An original EU plan unveiled in October last year said duty suspensions, if approved unanimously by World Trade Organisation’s 153 members, would affect about €900 million worth of Pakistani exports to EU and estimated Pakistan could boost sales to EU by €100 million.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 15th, 2011.
The European Union (EU) is still pushing for approval from trading nations to grant trade preferences to Pakistan in the wake of devastating floods last summer, the bloc’s top trade official said on Thursday.
EU plans to grant additional aid to Pakistan by suspending import tariffs on Pakistani goods.
]EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said, “At short notice, trade concessions are the only way to do something for Pakistan.”
An original EU plan unveiled in October last year said duty suspensions, if approved unanimously by World Trade Organisation’s 153 members, would affect about €900 million worth of Pakistani exports to EU and estimated Pakistan could boost sales to EU by €100 million.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 15th, 2011.