Pakistan’s exports, mostly of textile products, witnessed an over 19 per cent growth in the first nine months of the calendar year 2014 from a year ago owing to preferential market access under the GSP-Plus scheme.
“We have achieved our target projected for the first year of the implementation of the GSP-Plus scheme,” Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir said yesterday in Islamabad while briefing newsmen on the performance of the EU preferential package.
For the first year (January to December), the commerce ministry had projected a target of over a $1 billion increase in exports to EU.
The GSP-Plus is effective from Jan 1 which will be available to Pakistani exporters for the next 10 years.
The commerce minister ruled out any links between the GSP-Plus and the moratorium on death penalty in Pakistan. The implementation of 27 UN conventions are a separate thing, the minister explained.