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Pakistani industry will continue to be protected through the sensitive list maintained under the South Asia Free Trade Agreement after the negative list regime for trade with India is eliminated by the year end.
The Government conveyed its intention to provide protection to local industry in a reply sent by the Commerce Ministry to automobile manufacturers, assemblers and vendors, who had expressed concerns over free trade with India.
The Commerce Ministry said the sensitive list would be maintained after the negative list is abolished to ensure the protection of key industries, including automobiles, textiles, leather, surgical goods and export-oriented sectors.
“The idea is to ensure that imports in these sectors do not harm local industry,” an unnamed official of the Industries Ministry was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.
Goods imported under the sensitive list maintained under SAFTA will be liable to normal import tariffs, which would make these goods costly.
An unnamed official of the Commerce Ministry told the paper that India and Pakistan were moving towards trade liberalisation in the region but “it has to be balanced“.
The official said: “The main issue with trade in the region has been that entire commerce activity had been restricted only to protect five to six sectors while the other side was that free trade might even hit key sectors of economy.”
The sensitive list under SAFTA has been devised in consensus with stakeholders and by SAARC member countries, the official said.
In keeping with an agreement with all South Asian countries, the Federal Board of Revenue will soon reduce Pakistan’s sensitive list by 233 items, bringing the total number of items on the list to 936.
“The FBR will notify the reduction in sensitive list in the next few days. These items have been selected for education in the list after consensus and will not have any negative impact on local industry,” an official said.
At the same time, a reduction of about 30 per cent is expected in the sensitive list maintained by India in line with the Trade Liberalisation Programme under SAFTA.
But any further reduction is unlikely in the coming years, as other SAFTA members, including Bangladesh, have expressed reservations over further cuts.
The official said the Free Trade Agreement with China has not had any negative impact on Pakistani industry and trade liberalisation with India would not pose any major threat to industry.
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