January 4, 2003	Saturday	Shawwal 30, 1423

KARACHI, Jan 3: There are apprehensions of Pakistan losing its case by default against European Union’s proposed anti-dumping measures on bedlinen import as Aziz Memon Chairman of the Quota Supervisory Council (QSC) is away on long leave and his substitute is neither attending office nor responding to telephone calls.

“A five-year countervailing duty plus import tariff on bedlinen export will be disastrous for the entire textile industry,” Iqbal Ibrahim an aggressive exporter managing giant Al Karam Textile Mills in Karachi told Dawn by telephone on Friday.

Exporters say that any punitive measure on bedlinen import will have a domino effect on entire textile sector. It will affect consumption of cloth and fabric which in turn will curtail consumption of yarn and eventually the cotton. The resulting unemployment may lead to a big political upheaval.

Iqbal Ibrahim and many other top exporters have been advising the government since long to engage a reputed lawyer firm in Brussels on retainership basis. “After all government collect 0.25 per cent of Export Development Surcharge on exports,” argued Iqbal who demanded that amount should be put to use to protect exporters’ interest.

But leading exporters allege that top lawyers in Brussels are also reluctant to take up Pakistan’s brief on anti-dumping issue with the European Union. One of them had bitter memories of association with Pakistan after 1996 when he was engaged to contest a similar case but received his agreed payments in bits and pieces and that too after much hassles.

Mainly because of the efforts put in by the Brussels legal firm in 1996, quite a few top Pakistani bedlinen importers were taken out from the list of those accused of dumping. Those exporters—reported to be ten in all—are now pooling their resources to engage a lawyers firm on their own.

“It will cost 100,000 to 150,000 Euros,” an exporter disclosed.

Pakistan Bedwear Exporters Association has lodged a complaint with Commerce Secretary and Vice Chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau to relieve the acting Chairman of QSC who has “no time to sign letters for the payments to be made to lawyers.”

Top exporters now do not mince words to blame the government and “retail exporters” who have messed up the quota and tariff concessions obtained from European Union from the beginning of last year.

Pakistan’s bedlinen had remained under 6.4 per cent countervailing duty and 10 per cent import duty for five years since 1996 on dumping charges. Pakistan’s active role in the US led coalition against Afghanistan in October 2001 won the generous concessions from the EU of tariff free market access to textile products and other items.

Exporters in Pakistan were expected to enforce a self-regulatory code to ensure a minimum benchmark price and prevent dumping. While exporters say that an average price of three to four dollars a kg was offered to EU bedlinen importers, senior officials in Export Promotion Bureau said the benchmark price set by exporters’ associations was 5 dollars a kg.

“The bureau has no administrative authority to set any benchmark price for any textile product,” a senior official of the bureau explained. Exporters however say that it was EPB’s duty to closely monitor the prices being offered by the exporters.

“The EPB could have advised the exporters of the dumping consequences of the low prices offered by a large number of exporters,” an exporter said.

Business sources say that only 15 exporters offer more than 7 dollars a kg for their quality bedlinen product and each of them export more than 1,000 kg. The “retail exporters” are reported to have offered as low as three and four dollars a kg which has invited punitive action from Eurocotton.

About a dozen exporters are reported to have responded to the EU questionnaire and others are expected to follow. Exporters say that Pakistan has a case to contest against this proposed anti-dumping measure.