Business

Pakistan fails to achieve desired results from GSP Plus

Experts call for addressing challenges faced in global market

Our Correspondent October 20, 2017

PHOTO: ADB

PESHAWAR: Joint efforts from all government and private sector stakeholders are the need of the hour to address the challenges being faced by Pakistan’s exporters.

These views were expressed by the exporters and businessmen during a roundtable on “Achieving Export Competiveness in Pakistan”.

Participants of the meeting, organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Thursday, identified a number of areas currently harming competiveness of Pakistan’s export products.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Zahidullah Shinwari outlined the issues related to the energy sector and highlighted a lack of product and market diversification, especially heavy reliance on the European market, in the export sector. Former Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry vice president Adnan Jalil was of the view that the federal government was unwilling to engage with the stakeholders while framing relevant policies.

He highlighted the gaps within the taxation system as well as trade tariffs and called for an end to leakages in the form of corruption.

Experts from the public and private sectors presented recommendations for corrective measures to address the issues afflicting the country’s export competitiveness.

Trade Development Authority of Pakistan Director Sirajuddin stressed that Pakistan should find out why it had not been able to achieve desired results from the European Union’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus scheme, in addition to its bilateral and regional trade agreements with partner countries such as China, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

K-P Planning and Development Department Adviser Sabir Shah identified different sectors in which the province enjoyed a comparative advantage.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2017.

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COMMENTS (1)

brandy | 7 years ago | Reply GSP plus status was granted to all of Pakistan's major competitors - as such it was unlikely that any significant sales increase was going to result. In essence GSP plus status allowed Pakistan to remain competitive and retain it's share of the pie - unfortunately the size of the pie didn't get much larger but Pakistan doesn't control that.

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