Pakistan will go under a mid term review of Generalized Schemes of Preference (GSP-PLus) with European Union by mid of October in Brussels to review the different issues and future plans of action.
Pakistan has improved different indicators of human development during past three years and shown impressive performance
and extraordinary recovery on key competitiveness indicators, senior official of the Ministry of Commerce and Textile told APP Thursday.
Pakistan’s economy primarily depends on improving its institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health
and primary education indicators, he said.
“New trade policy mainly targeted at the international and internal trade for improving supply chain, enhancing use of
technology and providing competitiveness,” he said.
“We are working to search new trade avenues and markets in different regions of the world for promotion of country’s trade.”
Pakistan’s exports to Spain increased by 85 % after the signing of GSP-Plus in January, 2014.
Due to manifold increase in exports, Spain has emerged as third larger export destination for Pakistan’s exports.
Replying to a question, the official said that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Turkey, Thailand and Iran were under
negotiation phase and agreement would be finalized in coming months.
The official said that priority of the government would be to initiate the FTAs on same pattern with the Latin American Countries for promotion of free trade.
The government is committed to provide direction and promote diversification to internal trade for enhancing supply chains to
enhance country’s exports.
He said that the Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) envisaged diversification of export markets through adoption of an
outreach strategy for Africa, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Latin America.
The STPF 2015-18 aims to achieve annual exports to US$ 35 billion besides improving export competitiveness and making
transition from `factor-driven’ economy to `efficiency-driven’ and `innovation-driven’ economy.
The South American markets had great potential which needed to be exploited by taking timely measures he said, adding that Pakistan could get benefit from this untapped potential. (APP)
