ISLAMABAD, April 5: Pakistan has converted compound/specific duties on four items into ad valorem equivalent (AVEs) — duty on actual value — as part of compliance to the WTO regime. An official told Dawn on Wednesday that a compliance report was submitted to the WTO secretariat in this regard, which was necessary for negotiations under the non-agriculture market access (NAMA).

The AVEs under the WTO guidelines were calculated at 32.2pc, 33.1pc and 33.1pc ad valorem respectively for HS codes 2710.0081, 2710.0082 and 2710.0083 on petroleum oils and oils obtained from bituminous minerals, other than crude; preparations not elsewhere specified or included, containing by weight 70 per cent or more of petroleum oils or of oils obtained from bituminous minerals, these oils being the basic constituents of the preparations.

The AVE would be 69.3 per cent ad valorem on in aqueous solution (Soda Lye or Liquid Soda) under the HS Code 2815.1200.

Pakistan was one of the 17 WTO-member countries having NAVs tariff lines less than 1 per cent, which was the ideal form of tariffication. This means that Pakistan has only five tariff lines of NAVs of its total 5409 tariff lines mostly on agriculture products.

The official said that this was the simplest tariff with no para tariffs as compared to other trading partners like Switzerland having the highest of 83 per cent of non-ad valorem duties (NAVs) on both agriculture and industrial goods. And 33 countries have less than 5 per cent of the NAVs of the total tariff lines.