KARACHI: In order to penetrate deeply in the European Union (EU) after the removal of anti-dumping duty on bedlinen, the government has geared up its efforts to enhance exports.

As part of this strategy, Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) will send delegations of bed wear exporters to countries of European Union in April this year.

“This is the beginning of the exercise to exploit the maximum potential of EU market for Pakistani bed wear exports,” an official in TDAP said.

Pakistan remained in a disadvantaged position for the last five years in European market due to anti-dumping duty, which made the local bed wear export uncompetitive in this lucrative market, ultimately losing this market to competitors.

The EU’s anti-dumping duty on bedlinen import from Pakistan expired on March 05, 2009, which brought the ray of hope in the bed wear sector, which has been struggling to export to EU during these years.

It is pertinent to mention that EU slapped an anti-dumping duty of 13.1 percent in early 2004, which was gradually reduced to 5.8 percent on the request of Pakistan and it finally came to end this month.

Local exporters estimated that country lost $250 to $300 million annually in bedlinen export due to this duty and its benefit went to China and India as well as to Indonesia during these five years.

As per TDAP’s plan, the trade delegations will be sent to Western Europe – France, United Kingdom and Germany – and Scandinavian countries – Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

These trade delegations will assess the ground situation in EU and would also interact with the stakeholders in these countries to explore better opportunities for the bed wear exports.

Although, the efforts are afoot to boost the export of bed wear to EU, officials in TDAP have concerns over ‘price under cutting’ by the exporters.

The exporters, in order to gain the buyers, adopted this practice and there were no uniform rates. In many cases they were dispatching the export orders on cost to cost and in some cases at the minimum value below cost, an official said.

He cautioned that if the practice was continued, supply at such low value from Pakistan might ignite re-investigation by the EU.

He suggested that the exporters’ association should devise a uniform price mechanism, which would not only address their woes of increased cost of doing business but also avoid imposing of such barriers again in the future.