Pak-US Business Council Founder Chairman and veteran trader leader Iftikhar Ali Malik Wednesday demanded the visiting US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for Joint Ventures (JVs) in economic sphere and free direct market access to Pakistan at zero duty in the wake of war against terrorism.
Iftikhar Ali Malik said US should convene meeting of Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) to move forward for result oriented progress .There is already a GSP plus status for Pakistan in the US but new steps could be taken for getting maximum benefits of trade preferential facility, he further added.
He said that what Pakistan needs is to opt the model of joint ventures on the pattern of Egypt and some African countries to enhance trade ties with biggest economies like the US. Iftikhar said the last meeting of TIFA was held in May last in which both sides had discussed ways to improve access to products such as agricultural goods and medicines in either markets.
He said Pakistan had been keen to explore potential trade concessions as it could import more US cotton in return for preferential US market access for its apparel export. A preferential Trade Agreement (FTA) could be a long goal because of complexity involved in the process, he further said and added that the TIFA framework provided an institutional mechanism to carry forward those discussions and come up with new ideas.
He said the US should remove the bottlenecks in bilateral investment treaty and efforts should now be made to better FTA and it is now imperative that the US should offer same package and incentives which it offers to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in textile exports, such as duty concessions and market access.
“There must be an incentive package for Pakistan for being a front-line state in combating terrorism with the US. He said that Pakistan is time tested friend and suffered colossal irreparable economic losses running in billions of dollars in war on terrorism in the region.
