QUETTA: Speakers at a seminar have said that the country has to improve its human rights situation to increase exports to Europe and get maximum benefit of the European Union’s Generalised Scheme of Preference + (GSP+) which links human rights and social issues to trade policy.

The seminar on GSP+ was organised by the Potohar Organisation for Develop­ment Advocacy (PODA), an NGO, here on Tuesday.

Yasmin Lehri, a member of the Balochistan Assembly, said that a lot needed to be done on human rights front in Balochistan. She called for coordination between civil society organisations and the government to ensure implementation of international treaties on human rights.

Muhammad Zubair, manager programmes, PODA, said that the GSP+ status was an incentive for Pakistani economy which must be retained through hard work. Compliance with GSP+ requirements was a win-win situation for people and business of the country, he added.

The GSP+ status allowed exporters to pay less or no duties on exports to the EU market, he said and pointed out that Pakistan was the only country in South Asia which had the status.

He said that the GSP+ status could play a vital role in economic growth of the country as it was saving 1.2 billion euro a year in duties because of it.

To retain the GSP+ status, Pakistan had to implement 27 human rights treaties, he said, adding that the EU had evolved a mechanism to monitor compliance to GSP+ status requirements. A country holding the status has to submit a report to the EU after every two years and civil society of that country is supposed to submit a shadow report with reservations on the government’s report.

Mukhtar Ahmed Chalgari, the regional head of the Strengthening Participatory Organisation, said that the GSP+ status offered incentives for countries to improve governance, human rights situation and democratic credentials.

He said that Pakistan had to work more to get the maximum benefits from the GSP+ status. Civil society can use GSP+ as a tool to highlight the need for improvements in human rights situation and engage in advocacy for implementation of human rights treaties.

Sana Durrani, the chief executive officer of the Today’s Women Organisation, urged the government and civil society to jointly work to improve labour laws and environment policies.

She called upon the government to establish national commission on human rights and advised the civil society to keep in touch with parliamentarians to ensure implementation of international treaties on human rights.

Sohail Ansari of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority said that Pakistan had obtained the GSP+ status after a long struggle. Earlier the country exported only textile products to the EU market but after getting the status, it exports 6,000 products to the market.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2015

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