ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s exports to 28-member European countries witnessed a growth of 33 per cent under the autonomous trade preferences on 75 products, commerce ministry said on Thursday.

In absolute terms, the export proceeds to EU of the 75 products reached $1.69 billion in January to October period of 2013 from $1.27bn over the corresponding period of last year.

EU has announced autonomous trade preferences (ATP), which has given duty free access to 75 products from November 15, 2012 to December 31, 2013, in response to devastation caused by floods in Pakistan.

The ministry claims that more than 80pc of increase in exports to EU has been due to ATPs.

The quota utilisation of the 75 products remained mostly unutilised. Of these, the uses of 18 products were 100pc or more utilisation, for 21 products (75 pc to 99 pc), 11 products (65 pc to 74 pc), 11 products (50 pc to 64 pc) and 14 products (less than 50 pc).

This clearly reflects the capacity issues of Pakistan’s exports sector which did not avail the available quota fully.

Among the EU member countries, United Kingdom has emerged as Pakistan’s major exports destination ($1.253bn), followed by Germany ($967.040 million), and France (956.317m) in the year 2012-13.

The ministry said this scheme has now been replaced by the Generalise System of Preferences (GSP) Plus scheme, which results in duty free access to Pakistan on more than 90pc products of Pakistan’s interest.

It is estimated that Pakistan’s export will increase by at least $1.5bn by 2014.

The sectors that will get benefit from the scheme include intermediary textile goods like fabric and yarn, textile garments including hosiery, home textiles including bed, table, kitchen, and toilet linen, articles of leather, ethyl alcohol, footwear and plastics.

The working paper of the ministry shows that exports of ethyl alcohol will increase by $10.58m in 2014, carpets $12.15m, plastics $12.50m, footwear $18m and leather $127.25m under the GSP plus scheme.

The paper further estimates that exports of non-value added textile will increase by mere $221.25m, home textiles $307.5m and textile garments $408m, respectively under the scheme.