ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Commerce Secretary Younas Dhaga has said that regarding the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Pakistan, the Turkish Commerce Ministry has received special directives from its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan for early conclusion of FTA between the two countries.
“Pakistan and Turkey have discussed specific sectors including textile sector during the seventh round of negotiations on FTA between Pakistan and Turkey,” Muhammad Younas Dhaga told APP here on Sunday.
Younas Dhaga led Pakistan’s delegation in negotiation on FTA in the final round of the negotiation. He informed that the two sides had discussions on goods, services and investment. After signing a new FTA, both the countries will be able to improve their trade balance, he added.
Dhaga said that after the conclusion of bilateral FTA, Pakistan will get market space in agriculture and pharmaceutical sector in Turkey.
He informed that Pakistan’s major imports from Turkey include man-made textiles, towels, steel structure, tanning and plastic chemicals, processed milk and whey.
Whereas, he said the country’s major exports to Turkey are denim PET, ethanol, cotton yarn, fabric and rice, garments, leather, carpets, surgical instruments, sports good, chemicals.
He said that priority of the government was to promote trade liberalisation for searching new potential markets in different parts of the world to increase the country’s trade.
Replying to another question, he said that Pakistan has started initial negotiation for proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Vietnam and Indonesia to explore the potential market of South East Asia.
He further informed that the 10th round of FTA negotiation would start between Pakistan and Thailand by February 2018, in which both sides would present the complete offer list of FTA for reaching the final agreement.
Secretary Commerce said both sides had exchanged the final offer list of items for free trade, including automobile and textile sectors in order to remove the reservations of both sectors.
He also informed that a round of negotiation with China under 2nd phase of FTA will be held on February 6-7, in Islamabad.
Earlier the Businessmen Panel (BMP) Chairman Mian Anjum Nisar said that Pakistan has the potential to enhance its exports to Turkey up to $5 billion and needs to focus on streamlining Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries.
He mentioned that tariffs imposed on top 10 high potential items of Pakistan are low (9.6 per cent or below) yet there is a significant difference between tariffs placed on goods imported by Turkey from other countries.
“Turkey’s FTA partners Egypt and Jordan enjoy tariffs significantly lower than those currently faced by Pakistan,” said the BMP Chairman.
He reiterated that Pakistan must emphasise for tariff reduction on its high potential export products.
He opined that negotiations between the two countries needed to focus on tariff elimination across high potential exports, particularly those in which the exporter has a comparative advantage.
Secretary-General (Federal) of the BMP, Ahmad Jawad said relations between Pakistan and Turkey are continuously growing in the spheres of economic, defence and culture.
“We must work closely with Turkey to transform the close fraternal ties into a strategic partnership,” he said reminding that trade between Turkey and Pakistan still needs special focus, as Turkey is a gateway to Europe and can provide huge opportunities to the Pakistani exporters to market their products in European Union (EU) countries.
