ICCI Calls On PM To Negotiate PTA With USA During His Current Visit

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published July 20, 2019 | 02:34 PM

The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has called upon the Prime Minister Imran Khan to negotiate a Preferential Trade Agreement with USA during his current visit as removal of trade barriers and providing preferential market access to Pakistan products would double the bilateral trade between the two countries.

ISLAMABAD (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th July, 2019) : The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has called upon the Prime Minister Imran Khan to negotiate a Preferential Trade Agreement with USA during his current visit as removal of trade barriers and providing preferential market access to Pakistan products would double the bilateral trade between the two countries.Ahmed Hassan Moughal President, RafatFarid Senior Vice President and Iftikhar Anwar Sethi Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry stressed that Prime Minister Imran Khan during his visit should try to negotiate a Preferential Trade Agreement with USA in order to get enhanced market access for Pakistan products in US markets.

They said that promotion of trade and investment should get priority attention of the Prime Minister during his negotiations with US leadership.Ahmed Hassan Moughal said that after 9/11, Pakistan became frontline state to fight against terrorism due to which our economy suffered huge losses apart from rendering great human sacrifices.

Therefore, he urged that Prime Minister should sensitize US leadership to give preferential treatment to Pakistani products in its market without tariff and non-tariff barriers in order to compensate to some extent the huge economic losses.ICCI President said that Pak-US bilateral trade in 2018 was reportedly $6.6 billion, which could be improved significantly by developing strong linkages between the private sectors of both countries.He said that Pakistan's major exports to US comprised of textile goods, which were just about 3 percent of total US textile imports.

Therefore, he emphasized that US should be persuaded to enhance its import of textile products from Pakistan.