Turkey-Pakistan PTA: Technical talks to start soon

Humayun Akhtar Khan, the commerce minister, has sent a letter to his Turkish counterpart on December 4 reiterating commitment to move fast on trade negotiations and urged the Turkish government to send PTA draft so that technical talks could start, the source said.

“Pakistan wants the immediate negotiations to finalize PTA draft as President General Pervez Musharraf is scheduled to visit Turkey in the month of January,” the source said. “Pakistan wants the signing of PTA during the visit of President Musharraf’s to Turkey.”

He said Pakistan has already handed over its draft text on PTA when Kursad Tuzmen, Turkish state minister for foreign trade, visited Karachi in October last.

“We have completed our work with regard to the draft text, but we are still waiting for the draft from the side of Turkey,” the source said. He said Turkey wants to bring down tariffs to a level of 5 percent with a view to enhance the bilateral trade between the two countries that currently stands at $173 million per annum.

Both the countries have fixed the target to increase trade by $1 billion for 2003-04.

Turkey has offered to transfer the technology to Pakistan with regard to establishing food-processing plants.

“Pakistan has also established a joint ventures company for promoting investment,” the official said, adding all the issues would be settled at the formal technical negotiations. —Khalid Mustafa