KARACHI, Dec 10: Commerce Minister Abdul Razak Dawood is expected to leave for United States shortly to negotiate the release of detained textile goods worth millions of dollars at the US customs, official sources said here on Monday.

Textile made-ups worth millions of dollars are being detained by the US customs, which had early last month imposed embargo on some categories.

After detecting overshipment in ‘hot cake’ categories, including, category 666-S, 666-P, 360 and 361, the US customs imposed embargo last month and presently over 150 containers are reported to have piled up at the US ports.

Sources said the minister was likely to leave for US in a couple of days. He will be carrying with him a single agenda of getting clearance for the embargoed textile goods at the US customs.

All the textile made-ups held back by the US customs are for Christmas eve and if these goods are not cleared by Dec 25, they will lose their market, an exporter said, adding any delay will result in trade disputes and many exporters may have to suffer huge losses if the US customs auction the goods (not cleared in a specific time frame).

In order to save the detained goods from being auctioned the importer will have to pay $3,000 per container for shifting them to bonded warehouses.

The government, under the impression that the US government will allow greater market access and also bring down tariffs on textile imports from Pakistan, allowed overshipment in some ‘hot cake’ categories.

However, no such achievements could be made despite commerce minister Abdul Razak Dawood had paid a visit to the US in October for winning over some textile quota concessions from Washington.

Pakistan Bedwear Exporters’ Association (PBEA) chairman Shabir Ahmed said that wrong strategy adopted by the government had resulted in fiasco.

He said the minister during his last visit instead of meeting the US textile manufacturers only held meetings with importers and retailers, who have vested interest in tariff reductions.

He said the minister should have met the US textile manufacturers, who had been feeling threatened following the market access to Pakistani textile products.

The PBEA chief said, “our textile products are not in competition with those manufactured by the US textile industry, but still it was necessary that we should have taken them into confidence before making any move”.