EU welcomes India's decision to allow WTO waiver for Pakistan

From Rezaul H Laskar
Islamabad, Sep 29 (PTI) The European Union on Thursday
welcomed India's decision to withdraw its objections to the
World Trade Organisation waiver sought by the EU for granting
duty-free access to certain goods from Pakistan.
The EU described New Delhi's decision, announced on
Wednesday following bilateral trade talks between India and
Pakistan, as "very positive".
The head of the European Union delegation to Pakistan,
Ambassador Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, said the decision was
"relevant in light of the renewed floods in the province
of Sindh".
The WTO waiver granting unilateral trade concessions to
Pakistan was originally sought by the EU to provide relief
after devastating floods in India's neighbouring country last
year.
The 75 products on which duties are proposed to be waived
accounted for about 27 per cent of Pakistan's exports to the
EU last year, with their value amounting to almost 900 million
euros out of the EU's total imports of goods worth 3.3 billion
euros from Pakistan.
Liberalising these 75 tariff lines -- of which one product
(ethanol) would be granted a waiver subject to an annual quota
of 80,000 tonnes, based on past imports -- would result in an
increase in the EU's imports from Pakistan by an estimated 100
million euros a year, in comparison to 2009.
The EU will receive nearly 80 million euros less in tariff
revenues as a result of these trade concessions, a statement
said.
The EU will now re-launch the process in the WTO for
formalisation of the waiver.
Simultaneously, the EU will press ahead with internal
legislative processes in the European Parliament and Council
for ratification of the proposed regulations granting these
trade preferences to Pakistan by member states.
The next meeting of the WTO Council for Trade in Goods is
scheduled on November 7 and a formal decision should be
possible at the next WTO General Council meeting in the
beginning of December.
"If all goes well, the preferences would be in place by
early 2012," the statement said.
The EU is Pakistan's largest trading partner, with their
annual trade valued at 7.6 billion euros.
The trade balance is already in favour of Pakistan, whose
main export items to the EU are textiles and clothing
products, accounting for over 60 per cent of all exports.