January 12, 2003	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 8, 1423

KARACHI, Jan 11: The European Union Commission has imposed embargo on imports of category 6 (shorts and pants) and 20 (bedlinen) just a couple of hours prior to the scheduled meeting between the Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan and the EU Commissioner for Trade, Pascal Lamy.

The commerce minister, who flew to Brussels in a hope to get more concessions and request the EU to restore the special flexibility quota of 4000 tons annually allowed on some categories was welcomed with a negative news of embargo.

Exporters said that this development took place at Brussels prior to the scheduled meeting between the visiting commerce minister and his counterpart Pascal Lamy on Thursday.

However, the EU which disallowed special flexibility quota of 4000 tons last year has now agreed to give 2000 tons in category 9 (towel) only. This will give a lot of relief to those exporters who have already made their shipments in this category.

The EU Commission has already initiated anti-dumping proceedings on bedlinen imports and Pascal Lamy is also reported to have categorically told the visiting minister that the process could not be interrupted at this stage as the legal course has to be allowed to move to its natural conclusion.

Presently large shipments of textile goods are detained at different ports of the EU states for being overshipped, and exporters are confronted with the issue and fear huge losses if these are not released at the earliest.

The EU which annually gives special flexibility quota of around 4000 tons in different categories did not allow the facility and as a result it created a lot of confusion amongst exporters who in the hope of getting the quota kept exporting their textile goods up to the close of quota colander on December 31, 2002. This resulted in overshipment to EU member states.

When the attention of the chairman EPB Tariq Ikram was drawn towards this development, he confirmed that the embargo has been imposed on these two categories i.e. 6 and 20 by the EU.

However, he said the overshipment of these categories to EU are not too large and all this has happened owing to uncertain situation created by the EU by disallowing the flexibility quota, which had been so far allowed by the EU.

Tariq Ikram said that in category 6 there is an overshipment of around 2.88 million pieces against its annual allowed quota of 46 million pieces. Similarly, he said in category 20 the overshipment is only by 1,200 tons against annually allowed quota of 50,000 tons.

He further said the a request was made with the EU to allow the flexibility quota in these categories and if the answer had been positive the present situation of imposing embargo would never have come up.

Like other categories the EU was requested to allow flexibility quota in category 9 as well and now they have allowed this facility by giving 2000 tons extra quota. Therefore, EPB chief said this will assist the towel exporter in clearing their overshipments at the EU ports.