Brussels, 14/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU is continuing its consultations at the WTO in an effort to obtain approval for a waiver from the 153 member countries to grant trade preferences to Pakistan. The country's economy was devastated by floods last August. Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht informed the European Parliament on 12 April that “we are actively working on this to get a solution. Not all hope is vanishing”. Several WTO countries are afraid of the economic impact that systematic trade preferences to Pakistan would cause and are therefore refusing to approve the EU request. A source close to the WTO case indicated that India, Bangladesh and Peru are the countries expressing this fear. Given that the European request has exceeded the 90 days established in WTO rules, the dossier now has to be sent to the WTO General Council meeting at the beginning of May.
The Commission's proposal last October is aimed at introducing a unilateral suspension for the next three years of EU custom duties on key Pakistani exports. Preferences are targeting 75 tariff lines on Pakistani products (65 on textiles, three on footwear, six on leather and one on ethanol, for which an annual tariff quota of 100,000 tonnes is planned). This initiative is expected to help increase Pakistani exports to the EU, which will be worth around €100 million a year, compared to the figure for 2009. (E.H./transl.fl)