ISLAMABAD, Jan 19: Pakistan and Turkey are likely to give duty concession on 50 tradable items to each other under the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) to increase the current volume of trade between the two countries.

Officials told Dawn on Monday the PTA was expected to be signed during the visit of President General Pervez Musharraf to Turkey. Besides, a number of other issues concerning enhancement of trade between the two countries would also be discussed.

The signing of the agreement would be followed by an exchange of request lists asking for reduction of duty on around 300 items, the officials added.

According to the officials, both the sides agreed to study the possibilities of increasing the number of commodities subject to the bilateral trade as well as designing a new trade development strategy, including elimination of non-tariff barriers for each other within six months, reciprocal participation in the trade fairs and exhibitions and organizing trade delegation programmes.

In order to achieve this goal, the officials said the two sides agreed to prepare an action plan reflecting the political desire of the two countries to further develop the bilateral trade and economic relations, including joint ventures initiatives between business circles of the two countries in potential fields.

The officials said the two sides also realized that there existed numerous possibilities of investment opportunities in the fields of defence industry, food processing and packing, automotive industry and auto parts, household appliances, construction materials, textiles, leather machinery and finished products, sports goods and surgical instruments.

According to the officials, considering the insufficient information of their business circles on the respective markets, both the sides decided to establish a trade promotion company with the participation of the leading sectoral organizations of the two countries.

The trade company will especially support the trade and investment oriented activities of SMEs of the two countries by providing trade development facilities such as permanent exhibition centres, exchange of information on market, firms and sectors and facilitating the organization of sectoral visits.

The officials said Pakistan and Turkey agreed to acquaint Turkish businessmen with the investment potentials of the export processing zones and agriculture export processing zones located in Pakistan.

According to them, during the president's visit it would also be considered to further enhance the bilateral commercial and tourists activities. Both the sides have already agreed that lack of adequate and regular transportation facilities seemed to be one of the major obstacles to further enhance the bilateral trade relations.

It was possible that Pakistan and Turkey might examine the possibilities of setting up a regular shipping line between Karachi and Istanbul, the officials added.