ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: The final shape to the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Sri Lanka is likely to be given by the new elected government in the next few months, reliable sources told Dawn.
Commerce Minister Abdul Razak Dawood was due to hold final round of meetings with the Sri Lankan trade authorities scheduled for October 22-24 to finalize the agreement, but it was postponed for reason of transferring of power to the new government. Earlier, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were set to sign the much-awaited FTA on October 24, which was to be effective within next 30 days.
After President Pervez Musharraf’s announcement that he would transfer his chief executive power to the next prime minister by around first November, the commerce minister was engaged in the transition of power, the sources said.
A senior official on condition of anonymity confirmed to Dawn on Tuesday that a request has already been sent to the Sri Lankan government intimating that the commerce minister was not coming due to his engagement in transfer of power to the new democratic government.
According to the official, “we have now got enough time to further narrow down the disparity between the two countries in terms of items on ‘no concession and request list’.”
“We do not want to do things in hurry. We hope that in the new setup the agreement would be discussed at length before finalizing it,” he remarked.
Elaborating further, the official said the delay in signing of FTA with Sri Lanka occurred due to the fact that duty on some items were reduced by both the countries in their last budget which were earlier demanded for concession. These items were later replaced with fresh items which were yet to be finalized, the official said.
Similarly, following the introduction of harmonized system nomenclature in the budget 2002, the HS code of a number of items have been changed resulting in changes in the HS code of those items which were agreed in the concession lists by both the countries. In the light of this fresh lists were prepared, which were yet to be finalized. Official figures made available to Dawn showed that Pakistan achieved a trade surplus of $43.665 million with Sri Lanka during the financial year 2001-02, against $39.965 million trade surplus in the corresponding year, showing an increase of 9.25 per cent.
Further break-up showed that Pakistan exports to Sri Lanka stood at $72.119m during the financial year 2001-02, against $75.321m during 2000-01, showing a decline of 4.25 per cent.