WASHINGTON, Oct 6: Federal Commerce Minister Abdul Razzak Dawood, making his second visit to Washington within a month’s time, has reported progress being made in talks with US officials on gaining greater market access for Pakistani goods and reducing quota restrictions, but says further discussions are needed.

The minister had come to Washington last month before the Sept 11 attacks. He had described himself as satisfied during that trip also, but this time he must have found American officials in a more understanding and cooperative frame of mind given the importance Pakistan now commands as the US mobilizes efforts to move against Al Qaida and the Taliban regime.

Mr Dawood, whose second visit has come after the waiver of almost all sanctions against Pakistan, told a news conference at the Pakistan embassy on Friday afternoon that the US government had been helping him in efforts to assure American importers to continue normal dealing with Islamabad despite the current crisis.

Although the minister was not able to make any specific announcement either in relation to quota relaxations or greater market access — the two issues being inextricably linked — he sounded optimistic, and pointed out that further talks on these matters and the US stand on the WTO would be held later this month in Singapore. He stressed that the question of market access had not been seriously taken up with the US for nearly two decades, and now that it had been raised, it required complicated negotiations.

Mr Dawood was accompanied by an eight-member delegation of industrialists and entrepreneurs. He pointed out that they had held fruitful meetings with US importers and categorically stated that no orders had been cancelled or put off. He was hopeful that Pakistan’s exports, the bulk of which consisted of textiles, would remain unaffected because of the confidence of the international commercial community in Pakistani exporters’ ability to deliver.

Mr Dawood held meetings with US Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Alan Larson, US Trade Representative Robert Zeollick, US Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, US Undersecretary for International Trade Grant Aldonas and major buyers and importers of Pakistani goods.

APP adds: Mr Dawood said his visit had three purposes: to meet buyers, to meet representative of the textile industry and to hold talks with senior members of the US administration. He had come also to assuage any anxiety that US buyers of Pakistani textiles might have after the tragic events of Sept 11.

He said he was happy to report that his meetings with major US buyers had given him the reassurance he had come to seek. Their confidence in Pakistan industry’s ability to deliver was unshaken. He said he had been able to meet most of their concerns “to a large extent”.

He had told them that Pakistan’s factories were running and there had been no closures or “lost days”. There were some difficulties with air shipments but because of PIA’s efforts that problem had been solved. “There is zero backlog at the PIA now,” he added.