Tunisia lists products at preferential customs tariffs with Pakistan

TUNIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia and Pakistan are preparing a list of products that will benefit from preferential tariffs both for import and export, said Riadh Essid, the Director of the Department Asia at the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday.

This list could "boost bilateral trade" and "trigger the start of a new phase of our economic cooperation," said Essid on the sidelines of Tunisian-Pakistan Mixed Economic Forum, inaugurated in Tunis.

In February 2018, the two countries signed a series of agreements and memoranda of understanding on cooperation in agriculture, judiciary and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Although trade exchange between Tunisia and Pakistan does not exceed 35 million dollars in 2017 which was below expectations, they could touch a bunch of high value-added sectors including information and communication technologies, agribusiness mainly olive oil in addition to tourism, said Khaled Sallami, Executive Council of Tunisian Union of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA).

According to Khaled, Tunisia is strong in its strategic geographical position as an access point for African and European markets.

Pakistan's Ambassador to Tunisia Sem Zaheer Pervaiz Khan hoped that Pakistani investors could take advantage of Tunisia's position to market their products on African markets.

In 2017, Tunisian exports account for almost 38 percent of GDP, according to Ikbal Khaldi, the representative of the Center for Export Promotion of Tunisia (Cepex).

Ikbal said this North African country has about 6,600 exporting companies and no less than 5,900 export-oriented products.

As for trade exchanges with Asia, they represent only 2.7 percent of all Tunisian exports, according to the Cepex representative. Enditem