Duty-free access for textiles

DAWN, Karachi Thursday, 09 Apr, 2009

I WOULD like to draw readers’ attention to the Obama administration’s proposed duty-free access in the US for Pakistans textile goods, which is a sheer mockery of the administration’s claim to help Pakistan.

According to media reports, President Obama last week said, while unveiling ‘New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan’ (March 27), he would strongly support duty-free access for Pakistani textiles and apparel produced in certain areas bordering Afghanistan.

Under the new trade preference, duty-free access would be granted to textiles and apparel made in certain parts of the tribal areas and the NWFP.

In addition, a series of products would be excluded from the duty-free benefits, including cotton knit shirts and cotton trousers (which are the main products being exported to the US from Pakistan).

The House version of the bill also includes a complex system for verifying that textile and apparel plants in Reconstruction Opportunity Zone (ROZs) that must actually comply with core labour standards.

Several obvious conclusions can be drawn from the above. First, no such industry exists on the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan and under the current situation no entrepreneur would even be interested in setting up a unit even near to the proposed ROZ’s.

Second, the labour available in those areas is either unskilled or does not have any know-how of textile or garment manufacturing. Third, the products to be granted duty-free access include items which are either not being made in Pakistan or their share is negligible.

Third, the bill proposes a ‘labour official’ to be named by the Pakistan government for “developing and maintaining a registry of textile or apparel -exporting enterprises” and coordinating a monitoring programme which would be actually conducted by the ILO (International Labour Organisation).

Our textile industry is very sceptical of such a policy, while the US importers are already warning that such a policy would be rather ineffective and expect widespread malpractice from Pakistani exporters.

We strongly urge our government to take up this matter with the US administration, otherwise Mr Obama’s dream to turn suicide bombers into ‘stitching machine operators’ will not be realised, at least for this generation.