ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: The containers of bedlinen are awaiting clearance at the United States ports owing to embargo imposed by the US authorities, a senior official told Dawn.
Although the containers were off loaded at the US ports, they were yet to be cleared for the respective importers causing losses to Pakistani exporters.
To resolve the issue, some exporters have approached the Ministry of Commerce, seeking immediate release of seized containers of bedlinen.
The US tax authorities imposed a ban on October 11, 2002, on clearance of bedlinen cloth and on bedsheets on October 23, 2002, after the quota was declared exhausted.
However, the Ministry of Commerce was of the opinion that the quota was yet to be exhausted. These containers hold goods specially meant for the Christmas, and if not released, would result in heavy losses to exporters.
Similarly, the official said it was also expected that the US authorities might soon impose ban on import of category 363 (towels). He said the issue would be discussed at length in the first ever proposed meeting of the Pak-US Joint Working Group on Trade and Investment scheduled to be held in Washington on December 10.
According to the ministry, the embargo was imposed due to a discrepancy in the figures of quota utilization by the US authorities. The discrepancy is needed to be sorted out for re-crediting the miscalculated quantities to Pakistan, said the official.
According to the official, last year 2.5 million towels were miscalculated by the US authorities. Of these 0.34 million were later released/re-credited to Pakistani exporters.
“This showed that miscalculation had actually taken place last year, which might have happened this year as according to our estimates there was still room for export under this category,” claimed the official.
The Ministry of Commerce was hopeful that the issue would be resolved after negotiation with the US authorities.
Furthermore, there are anti-Pakistan sentiments in America due to the media campaign, and people refused to buy products with the ‘Made in Pakistan’ tag, the official said.
The official said since September 11, Pakistani exporters were facing difficulties in getting visas, which again affected their export orders as well.
According to the official, madeup articles of textiles had registered a growth of more than 100 per cent during the last four years. The export of the same products, which mostly included bedlinen, increased to $405m in the year 2000-01 from $240.24 million in the year 1997-98.