The incumbent government's backing out from its earlier stance of getting concessions from China at par with those it extends to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), is considered a compromise "deal in return for just one billion dollar increase in exports", informed sources told Business Recorder. Pakistan and China will hold detailed deliberations on the proposed duty free market access of Pakistani products on Friday (today) for which Commerce Ministry's team is already in Beijing.
China's top leadership has assured the Pakistani leadership that it is ready to double Pakistan's duty free exports by $ 1 billion per annum but did not support Pakistan's long standing demand of duty free market at par with ASEAN countries.
Pakistani officials dealing with China are hoping that they can get immediate unilateral market access of at least $ 2-3 billion - a target to be achieved during the current fiscal year. Pakistan's trade deficit with China is around $ 10 billion per annum at present.
Commerce Division's insiders argue that the financial benefits of a new deal with China will be enough to ensure a market for domestic exportable surplus.
Prime Minister's Advisor on Commerce, Textile, Industry and Production Razzak Dawood has stated that he will undertake visits to different Pakistani cities to hold meetings with trade and industry and ask them to increase their production soon after the Commerce Division's team returns from China.
According to sources, Commerce Division has no clue if China is ready for Free Trade Agreement -II (FTA-II) which was stalled after China expressed unwillingness to accept some Pakistani demands.
Both sides have different views on the progress made during the 10th round of FTA-II. China maintains that for the offer list the two sides have reached an agreement on most of the products in their initial offer, and the remaining divergence lies only with a few textile products that Pakistan asked China for market access. China further says that Pakistani side agreed not to clawback on any product that applies for tariff elimination or reduction in the list in the first phase of FTA.
On text of protocol for second phase of CPFTA, the two sides have reached an agreement including on the content on "review of modification," "bilateral safeguard" and "balance of payment." The only remaining issue lies with the Chinese side on the proposed text on investment feedback. Pakistani side agreed to positively consider Chinese sides' proposal and to provide a feedback after domestic consultation in a timely manner.
On customs cooperation, the two sides agreed on the method of customs data exchange wherein they will exchange the highest price, lowest price and average price of concessional products on the base of 8 digit tariff lines. Customs of two sides shall sign a Memorandum of Understanding on this matter and implement the exchange data in a timely manner.
Pakistani side rejected the interpretations of Chinese side saying that China must appreciate Pakistan's position on maintaining the exclusion list which is hardly 0.9 per cent of the total tariff lines.
PML (N) government was ready to sign FTA-II with China but deferred it after domestic industry had approached former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and requested him not to sign the agreement without protecting domestic industry.
Comments
Comments are closed.