ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: Pakistan has sought formal relaxation from the European Union (EU) in its two conditionalities necessary for getting access to the zero rate duty scheme of Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) to be effective from January 2006.

Federal Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan said that Islamabad had requested the EU-member countries to give a grace period of three years up to 2008 for ratifications and implementation of all the 27 conventions attached with the new GSP scheme.

Talking to Dawn here on Wednesday the minister said that Pakistan also requested the EU authorities to increase the limit of share from one per cent to two per cent in the total GSP trade, which was necessary for qualifying to the new GSP plus scheme.

This means that those countries, which have more than one per cent share in the total GSP trade would not qualify for the zero rating duty under the new scheme. Pakistan's current share in the GSP scheme stood at around 1.7 per cent.

Mr Khan said that during his recent visit to the EU-member countries, he only raised these two issues with the relevant authorities for consideration. "We have not asked for any deletion or addition in the ratification of the conventions.

I have only sought reduction in the benchmarks to qualify for the new scheme. We have no problem in the implementation of all these conventions but we need appropriate time for it," the minister remarked.

Answering a question, the minister said that he was certainly optimistic that EU would consider Pakistan's case for the zero duty GSP scheme. He said that he had spent 50 per cent of his time on trade diplomacy.

He said that his current visit to the capitals of around 10 countries would help a lot in understanding Pakistan's position by those countries. Mr Khan said that all the trade officers posted abroad have been directed to invite buyers to the forthcoming exhibition of Expo-Pakistan.

He said that in those countries, where no trade officer was posted, the ambassadors of those countries have been asked to invite buyers to the proposed expo to be held in Karachi.

The minister said that the trade officers and ambassadors would accompany the buyers to Pakistan for arranging their interaction with the relevant exporters.