WTO Review Urges Further Pakistan Reforms

GENEVA — World Trade Organization members urged Pakistan in a review forum to push ahead with reform efforts to strengthen its economy and the global competitiveness of its goods, which includes a new five-year policy to revamp the country’s important textile and apparel sector by 2019. “We encourage Pakistan to keep pressing forward with economic reforms that make Pakistan a more attractive trade and investment partner,” Michael Punke, deputy U.S. Trade Representative, told a two-day WTO review last week of the South Asian nation’s trade regime. Punke said bilateral trade between the U.S. and Pakistan “while healthy by any measure, still shows room for expansion,” and noted that in 2014 U.S. imports from Pakistan were $3.7 billion and U.S. exports to Pakistan were $1.9 billion. He said the U.S. views Pakistan as an important partner not only on trade issues but also in global efforts on combating terrorism, and summed up, “We view Pakistan as a positive long-term bet.” Muhammad Shehzad Arbab, Pakistan’s secretary of commerce, told WTO delegates that in a bid to improve the business environment the government was launching a “virtual one-stop shop for multiple business registrations,” and also the rollout of “a Web-based one customs system at all customs

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