THIS is apropos the visit of commerce secretary to Beijing for the eighth round of free trade agreement (FTA) with China. This implies that the previous seven rounds have been unsuccessful and even in this eighth session the Chinese side only assured us they would look into our requests of allowing more Pakistani goods into China. There are major trade agreements like European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which have created barriers for non-members but give opportunities to member countries.

Nafta has no implication on Pakistani exports but EU and Asean do affect us. Pakistan is unable to convince Turkey to have FTA as the latter is committed to EU agreements and cannot lower import tariffs for Pakistan without the EU’s permission, which will never come.

Now FTA with China faces the similar dilemma as import duties among Asean countries are almost zero and Asean as one entity has signed trade agreements with China, India, Japan and South Korea.

Thus they have an advantageous import tariff, which China will never allow Pakistan, for it is not an Asean member and even cannot become one in the near future. This is so because it is a lengthy and cumbersome procedure and needs a lot of obliging protocols to which we are not prepared.

Our various export items are entering China through third countries of Asean, which shows that we have a market in China but Asean is our main hurdle.

The commerce ministry needs to inform the nation how it will be able to tackle or overcome this issue.

Zafar Hasan Khan

Director,

Pak-China Business Council of FPCCI

Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2017