KARACHI: The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (Unisame) has urged the ministry of commerce to examine the equal mutual benefits to Pakistan and Turkey before concluding the Preferential Trade Agreement, a statement said.

Unisame President Zulfikar Thaver said that the PTAs are always welcome but it should equally benefit both countries.

“We need to examine the import and export items of both the countries as Turkey’s industries are more advanced than ours. Turkey would be interested in our textiles, rice, and a few other commodities,” he added.

The Unisame president said that Turkey would be interested in exporting many items of finished goods to Pakistan which could be a setback to the local manufacturing units.

He emphasized the need for deciding on the items and total value of imports and exports.

At present, the banks are declining to open letters of credit (LCs) and imports are curtailed which could minimize the impact of PTA, Thaver said, adding that in the current conditions the PTA with Turkey would be one-way traffic.

He said that the other alternative is a currency swap agreement like it was decided with Iran but never implemented. “If we have currency swaps with Turkey and Iran it would be very fruitful and it would be a ledger account with both the parties paying one another in their own currencies and the invoices would be prepared accordingly.”

The Unisame council urged the ministry of commerce to expedite matters relating to the PTA as the country is facing economic urgency to enhance exports to pay for its imports either with exchange, barter or regular trade in dollars.