Mirza Qamar Baig, currently serving as Pakistan Ambassador in Italy, has been appointed as trade negotiator to tackle crucial issues of market access for country's textile products to the European Union (EU) and the US. Mirza Qamar Baig is the architect of Pakistan's first textile quota policy and was largely responsible for getting 15 percent additional quota for textile products and a duty-free access to the EU during 2003 when Abdul Razak Dawood was the commerce minister in General Pervez Musharraf's cabinet.
They fought Pakistan's case of greater market access on the basis of its role in narcotics control.
Today Pakistan once again faces the problem of duty-free market access to the EU due to the expiry of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) scheme.
The EU officials have indicated that Pakistan would not qualify for the new 10-year duty-free GSP Plus scheme beginning from July 2005.
The government has launched an initiative, including extensive lobbying in the EU capitals to get Pakistan a place in the new GSP scheme to help the exporters in competing in the quota-free phase starting from 2005 on the basis that Pakistan merits special consideration because of its role of a frontline state in the war against terror.
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