ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: Pakistan will formally start discussions from Monday with 12 European Union member countries for seeking their support to get access to the new Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) plus scheme (zero rate of duty).

An official source in the commerce ministry told Dawn that Federal Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan will leave on Sunday for an official visit to the EU countries as part of Pakistan's lobbying strategy to get the best possible market access for Pakistani exporters.

Mr Khan would visit Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Belgium and Luxemburge, respectively for a lobbying campaign linking zero rating in the new GSP with Pakistan's role in security. All our ambassadors at EU member state capitals have been activated to lobby for the GSP scheme.

Meanwhile, the official said that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would also meet the ambassadors to the EU member countries located at Islamabad to pursue them to help Pakistan in getting the GSP plus scheme.

Pakistan would also ask for relaxation of the conditionalities attached with the new GSP scheme - the most striking condition is that the applying countries should have to be a signatory to around 27 international conventions and agreements in various sectors.

According to the official, Pakistan has so far implemented around 17 conventions and would seek some timeframe from the EU to implement the rest of the conventions.

The new GSP scheme will be effective from January 2006 till the year 2015.

The amount of custom duties levied on export to EU under its GSP scheme would directly affect Pakistan's export competitiveness.