If just five percent of the free market access offered by China under the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (Phase II) is realised for the 313 high-priority tariff lines, Pakistan will see an estimated export growth of .
2 billion, said Hamid Ali, joint secretary of Foreign Trade-1 at the Commerce Division.
He was speaking at a seminar where he also said since the enforcement of CPFTA-II on 1st January 2020, Pakistan’s export interest have been greatly secured as around 83 percent of the country’s global exports have been liberalised in the agreement’s second phase which were just 41 percent under phase-I.
Similarly, 91 percent of Pakistan’s exports to China have been liberalised in phase-II were as phase I had only liberalised 30 percent.
This liberalisation covers 88.3 percent of China’s global imports or $1.6 trillion, according to Pakistani media reports.
The sensitive list has been enhanced from 1,410 in CPFTA-I to 1,760 in CPFTA-II after thorough consultation with stakeholders.
Provisions have been introduced to address the balance of payment (BoP) difficulties, Ali said. Effective enforcement of electronic data exchange will also ensure sharing of the real time trade data to discourage under invoicing and misreporting.
Safeguard measures have been introduced to temporarily restrict imports of products that harm the domestic industry.
