LAHORE, Sept 30: Pakistan has relatively lower tariffs as compared to its neighbouring countries in the South Asian region, says a World Bank official.

Speaking at a seminar on “trade policies in South Asia” arranged by the World Bank at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) here on Monday, Garry Pursell said South Asia’s produce of agriculture, livestock and fisheries were low cost and competitive in the world markets that implied that they did not need practice protectionism.

He said the Agreement on Agriculture would not have any impact on agriculture trade policies except for “increasing transparency and discouraging export subsidy”. He advised South Asian nations, especially India, to “decrease tariff protection in the interest of the region”. He also proposed that “South Asian countries need to fix support price at the level that does not affect the export price and phases out subsidies on agriculture inputs”.

It was important to realize that consumers in South Asia would benefit if protection was reduced or eliminated, Mr Pursell said.

Speaking on the occasion, another World Bank official, Richard Newfarmer, said developing countries had formed a negotiation coalition at Cancun for the first time to “contest the agreements against the risk countries”. He said “no one had foreseen failure of the conference, which left many developed countries puzzled”.

“Though it is a setback, the Doha Agreement must move forward. It is in the interest of the global economy as well as developing countries,” he said. However, he added, “dangers loom if the Doha Agreement was not implemented”. Such an eventuality, he said, may lead to more bilateral and regional agreements at the “expense of weaker economies that would lose the international market”.

Besides, it could also lead to an upsurge in protectionism and anti-dumping practice. The world would also lose an opportunity of accelerating growth and reducing poverty. “Thus all the countries must take responsibility to channelize efforts for implementing the WTO regime.”

He said the “World Bank was assisting developing countries in trade facilitation” so that they could become more competitive in the world markets. He added the global economy was recovering, but it was still fragile and exposed to structural risks.