The government and the trade community must act expeditiously and in concert to ensure compliance with the GSP Plus conditionalities if they want to derive due benefit from the facilities offered by the European Union.
This was the consensus at the second consultation on GSP Plus organised by the HRCP at its Secretariat on Monday.
The meeting was briefed by senior economic analyst, Nasir Jamal, on the steps so far taken by the government and the trade chambers for the implementation of the GSP Plus terms. He appreciated the work done by both the governments and the textile exporters but he stressed the need for greater collaboration between them not only at the national and provincial levels but also at the district level, as no side alone could accomplish the task of complying with the GSP Plus conditionalities. He also pleaded for efforts to mobilise the industrial labour to back the official-trade drive.
He noted that the labour representative launched a strong attack on the government and employers both for denying workers relief from exploitation. They said the trade unions were being suppressed, wages were low (the workers were denied the minimum wage and EOBI was not fair in working out their pensions), and that labour would play its due role in realising GSP Plus goals if their rights were respected.
The representative of the Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Lahore Chamber of Commerce, Jamil Naz, complained of lack of integrity and seriousness all around. This coupled with corruption in all fields of life and wrong development priorities was depriving Pakistan of its due share in the economic field.
While the meeting agreed that it was in Pakistani people’s own interest to implement the 27 international conventions on human rights, labour rights, environment and corruption, Raza Ali, an authority on urban and social development, pointed out the need for Pakistan to fully subscribe to the 27 conventions, adopt domestic legislation to implement the treaties that were ratified and seek cooperation of trade and industry sections that were not in the line of GSP Plus beneficiaries.
While welcoming the participants the HRCP Secretary-General I A Rehman focused on HRCP’s interest in persuading the authorities and the businessmen to derive due advantages form their GSP Plus status.
