Dispelling the impression that World Trade Organisation (WTO) regime would have negative impacts on socio-economic structure of Pakistan, Chairman National Tariff Commission, Faizullah Khilji on Monday has said that it was a rules and regulation based regime under which every member country had the right to protect its products and enjoy the international market equally without any exploitation.
"There is no threat to Pakistani economy due to implementation of the WTO regime as the tariff of Pakistan is already at the lowest ebb", he said.
He was addressing to a one day workshop on "WTO Subsidies and Countervailing Duties, Laws and Procedures" jointly organised by Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) and National Tariff Commission (NTC) to train the business community and other related people about the WTO and its effects.
He said that in 60s the tariff was 125 percent and brought to lowest of 25 percent in 2003.
"What sort of negative effect WTO would have now on Pakistan", he asked.
There was no need of making big changes in the socio-economic structure of the country for the WTO regime, Khilji said and added that Pakistan had already made changes in the socio-economic structure on the directions of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He said that there was no need of increasing the tariffs as various countries including Chian, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia had attained heights of development and economic stability despite the fact of low tariff.
He rejected any sort of compulsions on Pakistan regarding the membership of the WTO and said that Pakistan was one of the founding members of WTO with other 22 countries, and it was not so easy to become the member of WTO as its rules and procedures were complicated.
Khilji asked the business community not to be feared by WTO implementation, as it would have no negative impacts on Pakistan.
"We would have a good time to get ready to achieve positive results out of WTO by increasing the quality and productivity. Once we able to penetrate world market we would get a good share out of it", he said.
Briefing about the role of NTC he said that it was providing every possible facility to the business community of Pakistan so that they could prepare themselves for the upcoming challenges on economic front on world level.
He appreciated the effort by RCCI for holding such a valuable workshop and hoped for close liaison between both the organisations in future.
President RCCI, Hussain Ahmed Ozgen in his welcome address said that Pakistan should have no threat by the implementation of WTO in 2005, as the tariff in Pakistan was already low, but they had to make theirself prepare to compete in international market.
Ozgen said that WTO would had no negative impacts on Pakistan's socio-economic structure rather it would provide them a chance to enhance the quality of their products to penetrate forcefully in the world market.
He said that the WB and IMF time and again had stressed Pakistan to scale down their tariff, which had resulted then in very low duty in their country.
He added that because of the implementation of WTO in 2005 it would not affect the tax structure in Pakistan as it was already up to the desired mark.
He also said that Pakistan survived the experience of the sanctions imposed in 1998 surprisingly well.
Economic growth remained positive, in a year when many other Asian countries were recording negative growth.
RCCI chief stressed on manufacturers and industrialists to utilise all possible resources and prepare themselves to face the negative impact of globalisation in general and WTO in particular so that our industries and products could survive and better compete at the world level.
At the end President Hussain Ozgen presented certificates among the participants of the workshop.
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