ISLAMABAD, Feb 27: Pakistan has sought amendments in the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules so that developed nations do not use anti-dumping laws against its textile exports. Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan told Dawn on Thursday that he had taken up the issue with the director general of WTO during his recent visit to Japan. The minister returned on Wednesday night.

He said that long run prospects of trade relations between Japan and Pakistan were very good in view of Japan’s comparatively odd relations with some other countries.

He said Pakistan had taken a position that developed countries were using non-tariff measures like anti-dumping duties to hamper exports from developing countries, particularly textile exports from Pakistan.

He said unless these rules were changed by 2005, Pakistan would continue to suffer. “We want the existing rules to be changed so that developed countries could not use these laws against Pakistan,” he said.

The minister said the WTO director general agreed that the issue was now open for negotiations under the Doha round of the WTO. He hoped that the rules would be changed.

Pakistan believes that its textile sector growth has been the worst victim of the WTO’s anti-dumping regulations. The European Union has imposed the anti-dumping duty on Pakistan’s bedlinen, while South Africa was in the process of doing so.

Mr Humayun said that Japan had been talking about multilateral trade negotiations under the WTO until recently, but now it was moving towards bilateral trade agreements which also provided an encouraging situation for Pakistan.

Tokyo has signed the free trade agreement with Singapore and was in the process to finalize the FTAs with South Korea and Mexico. The same policy is now being pursued by Pakistan.

He said during his two-day visit to Tokyo he proposed to his counterpart that the two countries should consider bilateral trade negotiations on the FTA to cover all trade matters, particularly in the non-agriculture products sector. He also proposed that agriculture products could still be negotiated under the WTO.

He said the Japanese minister for international trade and commerce also agreed to consider various aspects of the issue.