ISLAMABAD, Oct 8: The United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) will provide financial assistance to Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) to develop a post-Cancun consensus among stakeholders through seminars and workshops.

The move is aimed at formulating a joint strategy in consultation with the government to raise Pakistan’s point of view in the next WTO meeting, according to an FPCCI press release issued on Wednesday.

The decision was taken in a meeting between UNDP Asia Trade Initiative, project coordinator, Murray Gibbs and FPCCI vice- president and zonal chairman, Sohail Altaf here on Wednesday.

Mr Gibbs is currently on appraisal mission to Pakistan to observe the preparedness of new trading order and to provide a framework for UNDP support to WTO issues.

“My contribution is to share my experience and expertise in this regard and we are now identifying the areas and sectors including textile, agriculture, fisheries, environment as to where UNDP should extend its assistance to developing countries so that they might prepare themselves to face the WTO,” Mr. Gibbs remarked.

Following the phasing out of quotas, to meet international standards would be a real challenge for developing countries, he said and added they have to work very hard to get their due share from the international market.

Vice-President, Sohail Altaf said that WTO was a very complicated regime and to understand it there should be close coordination among government, stakeholders and UNDP so that they might proceed accordingly in the light of shared information.

He said problems of developing countries were more or less the same, like uneven playing field because of heavy subsidies by the developed countries, which was aggravated by low

literacy rate, poverty, soaring prices and non-availability of skilled labour force.

Mr Altaf urged UNDP to broaden its monetary and technical assistance to Pakistan’s private sector as its industry was in development stage. “We really need support to prepare ourselves to meet the challenges of the WTO,” he added.

The two sides also discussed the United Nation Development Programme’s support for setting up some new laboratories in Pakistan so that WTO procedures could be adopted, the press release added.