ISDS Case Map
Pakistan
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Monday that free trade with India was not possible without resolving political disputes.
Pakistan and Bahrain will shortly ink Free Trade Agreement (FTA) which would boost trade between the two countries.
The road to US duy-free access could be longer than expected for a series of emerging countries. While Pakistan was recently refused that textiles and apparel benefit from preferential treatment, chances of duty-free access for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Cambodia are progressively fading.
A bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with the United States was billed to be signed during President Bush's visit to Islamabad last month. However, the signing ceremony was put off because the US draft contained some provisions which President Musharraf said were highly objectionable and needed to be renegotiated.
The bilateral FTA would go beyond the tariff concessions provided under the SAFTA agreement.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has cautioned that free trade agreements between the US and many of Pakistan's competitors in clothing exports as well as the trade diversion effect of the May 2005 inclusion of 10 East European countries in the EU (itself one of the top three T&C exporters), could affect the country's potential gains in exports.
The United States is reluctant to give increased market access for textile to Pakistan and has conveyed that any new trading arrangement that could be finalized between the two countries would be minus textile, a senior official told the Daily Times on Saturday.
Pakistan and United States on Thursday agreed to conclude Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) as early as possible.
Steps are under way to set up a Pak-Canada Joint Study Group for initiating Free Trade Agreement between the two countries, as the volume of two-way trade is not up to the mark in Pakistan and Canada.
What Pakistan really needs to fight extremism is better access to US markets in order to create jobs, Pakistan's Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan said.
