European Union is currently Pakistans largest trading partner (total trade in excess of $8 billion) and accounts for nearly $3.50 billion of Pakistani exports out of which the lions share at nearly $2.50 billion is in the shape of textiles. With Pakistans economy being in a consistent free-fall mode over the last four to five years, the recommended revival mantra, being advocated by most economic pundits, points to a turnaround through an export-led growth. Enhanced exports not only help us achieve the desired outcome of trade over aid, but also, at the same time, provide the economy with the essentials like, valuable foreign exchange; manufacturing and output expansion that results in boosting the overall economic activity per se; and employment (something that is becoming socially crucial each passing day given the high percentage of employable youth we possess amidst an alarmingly high inflationary environment) This is why when the EU foreign ministers met early September to look for ways and means to help Pakistan, as it passes through a most challenging time in its history, their focus was to devise a course where: The resultant benefits are not limited to one time but instead accrue on an on-going basis, and More importantly, Pakistan itself becomes a part of the package in order to help the world help itself. Their decision: To allow selected Pakistani products greater access to the EU market by giving duty concessions on them for the next three years, i.e. till such time that EU can somehow manage to grant the GSP+ Status (zero duty import) to the Pakistani textile products in 2014. An excellent decision on their part, but at the same time a decision that leaves a lot of responsibility on our shoulders to act quickly and effectively to capitalise on such an opportunity that is likely to soon come our way. While the political decision in principle may have been taken by the EU foreign ministers, what we need to keep in mind is that this is just the beginning of the process, which goes something like this: Over now to the EUs Director General (DG) Trade who prepares a list of 13 target items that will become the instrument of relief to be provided; then to the EU Commission which admits and approves the gross package put forward by the DG Trade; later to the EU Council, which debates and finalises both the amount and the procedure; and finally to the EU Parliament where the proposal needs to be adopted through voting by each member country. Also, side by side, a WTO waiver for this endeavour will be sought by the EU to avoid the repeat of it being shot down by countries like India or Bangladesh in the WTO Appellant Court. This long route of adoption, as evident, can entail a minimum of two to three months for implementation and requires simultaneous lobbying and consistent pressure by the Pakistani government. Not only this, but the Pakistan government, through the services of its Commerce Ministry, Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) and relevant Embassies, needs to also ensure that the proposal that gets generated from the EU DG Trades office is one that in the first place realistically allows Pakistan to realise the full potential of the politically envisaged ambit (Euro 350 million) as approved by the EU foreign ministers. For example, to timely iron out matters since although the EU government wants to provide a benefit of Euro 350 million in trade to Pakistan, the working papers of the DG Trades office reflect totally different values. In the DGs proposal: The 13 items selected do not represent the strengths of Pakistani exports, Have been selected using the WITS (World Banks integrated trading solution), instead of using the last three years Euro Zone data, Account for a total relief of only Euro 135 million out of which also only Euro 55 million comes Pakistans way, and Neither take into account the retailers share of the perceived gains, nor the post 2005 (when quotas came to an end) changes in trends for actual volume trade of the selected items. Last but not least, there is also talk of looking beyond textiles, which mind you is good and healthy in the long-term, but what we need to remember is that the relief is required now and not tomorrow and for the moment the only sector with the capacity to bring about quick exporting gains to Pakistan is textiles. Now, in all this it is absolutely critical and urgent for us to actively engage with the EU DG Trades office to make sure that the list of 13 items selected and moved to the EU Commission for adoption is one that allows us to gain the maximum potential of these concessions (Euro 350 million), as announced by the EU foreign ministers. Further, to help our case we need to provide the EU governments with maximum support to help them achieve the mandatory requirement of getting these proposals wetted from WTO. Sadly, at our end we have not, thus far, seen serious or meaningful efforts to take the stakeholders on board and mathematically calculate backwards using EZ data and price elasticity to arrive at an ideal list of products that can help Pakistan successfully achieve its desired objectives. In fact, no formal 'product wish list of any sort has to date been given to the EU DG Trades office from our side One hopes and prays that someone takes post haste notice of this before yet another opportunity goes begging On a completely separate note, there is this mounting debate in the society and the governmental circles on the need to impose a Flood Relief Tax. I for one am of the opinion that by all means please tax the daylights out of the people with the propensity to pay and carry this additional burden because proud nations always look inward rather than outward, but in doing so it is essential to: Create a separate head for this revenue to be managed by either an independent professional board consisting of reputable private sector personnel with successful management experience or by independent non-revenue related institutions such as the judiciary or the army. Keep provisions for adjusting private contributions already made for this purpose. Establish an apex body (non-political and non-bureaucratic) to measure the performance of the above mentioned board. Reciprocity in effective tax collection is always the key prerequisite. Already, there is this nervousness in the markets on the rumoured abolishing of zero-rating on textile exports, because history is our witness that if we again go down this course, the culture of fraudulent invoices will return, giving birth to an environment where cheats flourish at the cost genuine businesses and the national exchequer pays out more in refunds than it collects The writer is an entrepreneur. Email: kamalmannoo@hotmail.com.