Pakistan will enjoy concessions on 6,000 tariff lines, against the current 150 tariff lines, due to the grant of the Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) status by the European Union (EU), which takes effect from January 1, 2014, said Minister for Commerce and Textile Industry, Engr. Khurram Dastgir Khan addressing a press conference.
The concessions under the GSP+ status are an opportunity as well as a challenge for the Government as well as traders in the country to diversify exports and expand the production capacity in order to boost exports, he added.
The Minister said textile manufacturers in the country could particularly exploit the preferential access into European markets, if they switched to apparel manufacturing.
According to Mr. Khan, the GSP+ status would increase exports from the country and create more than 100,000 jobs in Pakistan, in various sectors, especially textile and garments.
Last week, Pakistan attained the EU GSP+ status with with European Parliament voting 409-182 in favour of granting the status to the country.
Under the GSP+ scheme, 20 percent of Pakistani exports would get zero-tariff access to the 27-member EU market, while another 70 percent of products would get access at preferential rates to the EU market for four years, beginning January 1, 2014.
The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) estimates that the GSP+ status would double the country’s textile exports to US$ 26 billion from the current US$ 13 billion over a four-year period.
In fiscal year 2012-13, the EU accounted for about 25-30 percent of all textile and garment exports from Pakistan.
Source:
http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=157364
