India's opposition leads to rejection of EU tariff deal

JAISWAL

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2010
Messages
1,527
Likes
1,027
India's opposition leads to rejection of EU tariff deal | Newspaper | DAWN.COM
.
.
ISLAMABAD: The European Union has failed to get approval at the World Trade Organisation from member nations, especially India, for granting trade preferences to Pakistan on 75 items, it is learnt.
A senior government official told Dawn: "We have been informed unofficially by EU trade officials that the preferential trade package announced last year for Pakistan is a gone story."
He said the EU officials were of the view that the issue would no more be pursued at the WTO because India was not allowing the adoption of the package.

The EU had announced to give a time bound duty-free access to Pakistan for 75 items to compensate losses caused by last year's devastating floods. The package was scheduled to come into effect in January this year.
The EU had recently approached the WTO to seek a waiver for one year on trade preferences to Pakistan on these products amounting to almost 900 million euros.
A trade source said the EU itself did not appear to be interested in pursuing the issue."EU doesn't care much about us," he commented.
A source in the WTO secretariat confirmed that there would be no fresh initiative from the EU to persuade India to agree to allow the preferential package. He said the seeking of a waiver from WTO members was a request which would be kept lingering on unless withdrawn or approved. So technically it would be wrong to say that the EU had withdrawn the preferential package because there was no deadline for the waiver, he added.
A source in the commerce ministry said apart from India's opposition the issue was handled badly by the government, especially the commerce ministry. The ministry is virtually being run by a secretary who is most of the time on foreign visits with the prime minister or the president.
The WTO wing at the ministry has also been abandoned because it has no boss to deal with such issues or give feedback to the Pakistan's WTO mission in Geneva. It is said the commerce minister seldom visits his ministry and therefore, everything is referred to the secretary.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Feb 16, 2009
Messages
29,799
Likes
48,278
Country flag
India has a choice go with a EU trade deal or possibly a future US trade deal. Whatever side India picks will be a boost for that side and help them come out of their present economic mess faster. India does not need to accept terms which are unfavorable.
 

ace009

Freakin' Fighter fan
Senior Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2010
Messages
1,662
Likes
526
Yes - given a choice between trading with India (2+ Trillion dollars and 300 million middle class) vs with Pakistan (175 billion dollars and 10 million middle class), guess who the EU and USA is going to go with ...
If not for the war with Afghanistan and US help, Pakistan would be begging with China to become China's satellite state.
 

JAISWAL

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2010
Messages
1,527
Likes
1,027
very well said.
And i think EU making India the bad guy here and as we know some members of EU also had oppose that deal(spain)
 

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
More than anything else it's business decision by India. Why would we agree to a preferential trade agreement between EU and Pak which could well hurt our own business like textiles? Indian textile industry is in the doldrums and could do with some good orders from Europe than let it go to Pak under preferential trade tariffs.
 

ace009

Freakin' Fighter fan
Senior Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2010
Messages
1,662
Likes
526
It's also a strategic decision by GOI. Trade deal with Pakistan means EU will have vested interests in Pakistan, which India does not want.
 

mayfair

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2010
Messages
6,032
Likes
13,109
Puki perfidy as usual. They failed (rather deliberately overlooked) to mention two very important facts

1. India was not the only country or even the major opponent to this proposed free trade pact- their brothers Bangladesh were even more vociferous in their opposition than us, not to mention Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

2. The pretext they claimed for this free trade pact was the recent devastation caused by floods and the relief that was required and it was successfully argued by other countries that it had nothing to do with the Puki textile industry, especially since they import much of their cotton from..surprise surprise India!! Remember the hoopla over Indian ban over cotton exports causing much takleef across the border?

These buggers wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Import raw materials from elsewhere and then sell them around the world at favourable terms harming our interests even more.
 

ganesh177

Senior Member
Joined
May 18, 2009
Messages
1,308
Likes
1,657
Country flag
Its more of a business decision. Help to the flood victims does not have to come at the expence of poor laboures in bangladesh, india, srilanka, vietnam. These are not born ultra rich nations. This wud had lead to unfair trade practices setting up the wrong presedence. If EU really wanted to help then they shud had given the direct aid package to the flood victims, not this way which wud had favoured only the already rich traders of paksitan.
 

ace009

Freakin' Fighter fan
Senior Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2010
Messages
1,662
Likes
526
1. India was not the only country or even the major opponent to this proposed free trade pact- their brothers Bangladesh were even more vociferous in their opposition than us, not to mention Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Actually, even though Bangladeshi Mullah's like Pakistan nowadays, most Bangladeshi's don't like Pakistan that much. Only the religious idiots in Bangla favor Paks over India. The Pakistanis on the other hand hate the Bangladeshi's by their heart.
 

debasree

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2011
Messages
819
Likes
86
Country flag
if the eu want to give dole pakistan give them directlly ,why give them dole hiddenly at indias expence,we cannot afford to loose our business,for a such country ,which is not only hostile to us but also responsible for many terrorist activity here.
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top