A senior government official told Dawn: “We have been informed unofficially by EU trade officials that the preferential trade package announced last year for Pakistan is a gone story.” – File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The European Union has failed to get approval at the World Trade Organisation from member nations, especially India, for granting trade preferences to Pakistan on 75 items, it is learnt.

A senior government official told Dawn: “We have been informed unofficially by EU trade officials that the preferential trade package announced last year for Pakistan is a gone story.”

He said the EU officials were of the view that the issue would no more be pursued at the WTO because India was not allowing the adoption of the package.

The EU had announced to give a time-bound duty-free access to Pakistan for 75 items to compensate losses caused by last year’s devastating floods. The package was scheduled to come into effect in January this year.

The EU had recently approached the WTO to seek a waiver for one year on trade preferences to Pakistan on these products amounting to almost 900 million euros.

A trade source said the EU itself did not appear to be interested in pursuing the issue. “EU doesn’t care much about us,” he commented.

A source in the WTO secretariat confirmed that there would be no fresh initiative from the EU to persuade India to agree to allow the preferential package.

He said the seeking of a waiver from WTO members was a request which would be kept lingering on unless withdrawn or approved. So technically it would be wrong to say that the EU had withdrawn the preferential package because there was no deadline for the waiver, he added.

A source in the commerce ministry said apart from India’s opposition the issue was handled badly by the government, especially the commerce ministry. The ministry is virtually being run by a secretary who is most of the time on foreign visits with the prime minister or the president.

The WTO wing at the ministry has also been abandoned because it has no boss to deal with such issues or give feedback to the Pakistan’s WTO mission in Geneva.

It is said the commerce minister seldom visits his ministry and therefore, everything is referred to the secretary.