KARACHI, Nov 28: Pakistan’s policymakers unending appetite for signing free trade agreements (FTAs) with many countries was criticised at a WTO seminar on Tuesday organised by the directorate of Research and Training, Customs, at the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

“We have hardly ten items to offer for export and all of these are primary commodities and semi-processed goods,” Engineer M A Jabbar, a former vice-president of FPCCI remarked while pointing out that FTAs will provide opportunities to other countries to dump their goods at zero or low rate of duty.

“This hurts our industry whatsoever it is,” he said while making a specific reference to the recently concluded FTA with China.

He identified about ten items — all primary commodities and semi- processed goods — which constitute about $400 million segment of Pakistan’s export to China when all varieties of Chinese goods have literally flooded Pakistani markets.

In another context Jabbar pointed out that for last several years “our complaint” was that national resources were being eaten up by losing public sector entities — KESC, Wapda, Steel Mills — but now almost Rs100 billion is being provided to textiles and other private sector concerns not only to keep them afloat but to make these entities profitable.

Ms Musarrat Jabeen, Member Sales Tax, Central Board of Revenue, endorsed the view that the government’s subsidy to keep private sector business afloat was not sustainable and “it kills the competitive spirit of the business concern.”

She informed the businessmen that the officials involved in FTA negotiations with China took all care to safeguard Pakistan’s business interest and that the FTA should offer a way ahead for investment.

Engineer Jabbar, who heads the WTO cell in FPCCI, spoke at length on the difficult road taken by all the successive governments since 1995 to comply with all conditions of WTO but pointed out emphatically that Pakistan does not have a predictable economic model as it has to struggle to comply with the WTO, IMF and World Bank conditions at the same time.

Recalling, he said that Pakistan’s import-export trade virtually stagnated during 1995 to the year 1999 while the GDP was on downslide and unemployment was on the rise and the ratio of people living below the poverty line reached 40 per cent. Under the WTO, some 150 countries were expected to synchronise their laws in conformity to global requirements.

After the year 2000, the Pakistan government enforced TRIPS and TRIMS related laws and did other legislative work in the form of ordinances rather than through debates and discussions in the Parliament. The automobile sector and vendors managed to pressurise the government to circumvent WTO condition for two years after the year 2002.

A direct impact of the WTO, he said, is the widening of Pakistan’s trade imbalance from about $2 billion about five years ago to about $10 billion last year.

Mohammad Ashfaq, an official of the Customs, explained the structure and working of the WTO and the mechanism of dispute resolution.