Obstacles to intra-OIC trade to be removed, says minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Commerce Engr. Khurram Dastgir Khan represented Pakistan at the Ministerial session of the 31st meeting of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC) held on Wednesday (November 25, 2015) in Istanbul. The agenda of this year’s session was “Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Development challenges of the Muslim Ummah: Improving Service Delivery”.
The ministerial session of COMCEC was opened by the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyab Erdogan. In his speech, he stressed upon increased collaboration between the OIC member states on eliminating poverty and solidarity against the global extremist forces.
The minister for commerce was requested by the Asia Group members of OIC to represent them in the formal session. In his speech, he stressed upon the need to enhance economic and technical cooperation and use of various instruments of development among the OIC member states. He also highlighted the recent achievements of Pakistan, particularly in the area of poverty alleviation and infrastructure development.
The minister called upon the member states to increase intra-OIC trade while benefiting more from COMCEC platform. He emphasized the need to raise commitment to remove bottlenecks in enhancing the intra-OIC trade. These obstacles include issues of tariff, para-tariff and non-tariff barriers and notably, exports subsidies, exportnon-tariff barriers; and notably, exports subsidies, export taxes/restrictions, aid and guarantees to domestic production, trade financing, restrictions in the field of government procurements, currency devaluation, trade defence measures, investment-related measures, production requirements (content), quotas, imports prohibitions, consumer subsidies, etc. Barriers in logistics infrastructure, transport, weak or unsuitable support services to international trade also are great hindrances to the trade in this bloc.
During 2012, Intra-OIC trade stood at 18.2%. However, for Pakistan the intra-trade with the OIC countries was about 40%, i.e., our exports to the OIC countries were 35% (US$9.2 billion) and imports from the OIC countries were 44.7% (US$23 billion), as reported by OIC trade statistics.
The Ministry of Commerce, Pakistan, is pursuing trade relations with the OIC member countries through different institutional arrangements mainly focusing on market access. These institutional arrangements include Preferential Trade Agreements, Free Trade Agreements and various other Trade Agreements.
Among the OIC member states Pakistan has Free Trade Agreements with Malaysia and Preferential Trade Agreements with Indonesia and Iran whereas negotiations for an FTA with Turkey and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council are in progress.
The Developing 8 (D-8) is a group of Muslim countries comprising Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. In the area of trade among the member countries, a Preferential Trade Agreement was signed on 13-14 May 2006.
Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) was signed on 28th October, 2010 which replaced the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement of 1965. The new Agreement is based on best international practices and provides freedom of transit through the territories of both the countries.