Pakistan's GSP-Plus status to continue: EU

ISLAMABAD: The Inter­national Trade (INTA) Committee of the EU Parliament has extended the Generalized System of Preferences-Plus (GSP-Plus) status for Pakistan, allowing the country to keep on enjoying preferential duties on exports for the upcoming two years.

Pakistan is triumphing over the GSP-Plus since 2014 and the recent win is the continuation of an award for Islamabad’s progress in implementing new laws and developing new institutions for embedding 27 core conventions of GSP-Plus, especially the National Action Plan (NAP) for human rights.

Pakistan’s third two-yearly assessment report, which was published by the Euro­pean Commission on Feb 10, was deliberated by the INTA on Feb 19 and by the GSP Working Party of the European Council a week later.

The European Commission and External Action Service has recommended at both the forums for the continuation of the GSP-Plus scheme and stated their monitoring priorities for the next periodic monitoring cycle, as per reports. There is an explicit indication that the EU authorities are satisfied with the results of the third two-yearly assessment of GSP-Plus.

PM’s adviser on commerce thanks EU institutions, asks exporters to take the advantage of the opportunity available till 2022.