ISLAMABAD - Federal Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan has urged Pakistani exporters to avail maximum advantage of Pak-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

While chairing a briefing on the Pak-Malaysia FTA, he said that the Pakistani exporters must focus on the Malaysian market. The minister said that though all major Pakistani export products such as textile, surgical and leather enjoy zero tariff rates but still this market is being ignored by the Pakistani exporters. “The commerce ministry is working on the FTA with Malaysia to take more concessions for Pakistani exporters and for including more and more items in the FTA but the principal export items already enjoys full market access in Malaysia and the need is to take maximum advantage of it”, he added.

The comprehensive Free Trade Agreement for Closer Economic Partnership between Malaysia and Pakistan (MPCEPA) was signed on November 8, 2007 at Kuala Lampur and became operational on January 1, 2008. The agreement covers goods, services and investment.

The minister was informed that Pakistan has offered tariff concessions to Malaysia in 6,083 tariff lines while Malaysia has offered concession to Pakistan on 10,576 tariff lines and out of the total, 74 percent (7,914 tariff lines) enjoy zero duty which includes most of the principal export items of Pakistan.

Under the agreement, a Joint Review Committee has been established to monitor progress of the agreement and till now, three meetings of the JRC have been held. During the 2nd meeting, both sides agreed to adopt amendments in Chapter 3 on Rules of Origin (ROO), and its corresponding Annexes 3 and 4 of MPCEPA. During the 3rd session of JTC held on September 27-28, 2016 in Kuala Lumpur, both sides agreed that initially the expansion will take place in form of Early Harvest Programme, which envisages further immediate concessions on 10 items.