FPCCI Urges US To Include Textiles Under GSP Facility

FPCCI Urges US To Include Textiles Under GSP Facility

The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) has urged the United States to extend the generalized system of preferences (GSP) till December 2020 and include textile products under the facility. The US GSP benefit to Pakistan allowing duty-free and duty concession access for several products excludes core textile and leather products.

GSP is a preferential tariff system that offers a formal system of exemption from the more general rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The US GSP facility for Pakistan is valid till December 2017.

At a meeting with a six-member delegation of the US Embassy in Pakistan, FPCCI acting president Irfan Ahmed Sarwana conveyed that the 7-32 per cent duty on certain textile products in the United States is very high, Pakistani media reports said.

Being a frontline ally in the US war against terrorism, Pakistan has suffered huge losses in the form of declining exports, compensation paid to the victims and internally displaced persons, destruction of physical infrastructure, decline in foreign investment, inordinate delay in the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, reduction in tax collection and decline in industrial output, and therefore, deserves better access to US trade instead of aid, Sarwana said.