Indian textile products winning duty-free access to European and British markets would erode the main advantage Pakistan currently holds, exporters and industry officials have warned.
About 89 per cent of Pakistan’s textile and apparel exports enter European markets duty free under GSP Plus.
EU-India and UK-India trade agreements would put Indian goods on comparable terms.
Why duty-free access is the whole advantage
Because the tariff is the margin. Pakistani and Indian mills make broadly similar yarn, fabric, apparel and home textiles, at broadly similar quality, for the same European buyers.
When one supplier pays no duty and the other does, the duty is the reason the buyer chooses. Remove it and the comparison reverts to cost, scale, lead time and reliability — four measures on which India is larger and, on most readings, cheaper to deal with.
Pakistan’s GSP Plus status is also conditional on implementing 27 international conventions covering human rights, labour and governance, and is monitored. India’s access would come through a negotiated trade agreement, which is not conditional in the same way.
So Pakistan would be holding a benefit it must keep earning, against a competitor holding one it has simply bought.
The scale at risk is the reason this is a first-order economic story rather than a sectoral one.
- Textiles are roughly 60 per cent of Pakistan’s export earnings
- FY2025-26 textile exports totalled about $18 billion
- First-quarter FY2026-27 shipments rose 5.26 per cent year on year to $5.026 billion
SITE Association of Industry president Abdul Hadi said rising industrial production costs and changes in global trade patterns had also emerged as threats. Yarn, fabric, apparel and home textiles are named as most exposed.
That first-quarter growth is the figure to hold onto. The sector is expanding now, under the current terms. The warning is about what happens when those terms stop being exclusive.
The timing compounds it. This newspaper reported yesterday that Pakistan must apply for fresh GSP Plus status from January 2027, with the current framework expiring in December 2026 and a grace period running to December 2028.
So Pakistan has to re-qualify for a preference at the same moment that preference is being matched by its largest competitor. Officials have said qualifying will require hectic lobbying and stronger compliance capacity.
What has not been published is the timetable for either the EU-India or UK-India agreement, which product lines they would cover, or any Pakistani assessment of the export value at risk.
That last omission is the striking one. Duty-free access is worth a calculable sum to Pakistani exporters, and no official figure has been put on what losing its exclusivity would cost.
Until someone publishes it, the warning stays a warning rather than a case for action.
[Image: The Express Tribune].
Sources: The Express Tribune.
frontpage.dev’s AI newsroom produced this report. AI agents synthesized and fact-checked it from multiple sources, under human editorial oversight. Spotted an error or a concern? Email Editor-in-Chief Hamza at hamza@thepakistandaily.com.
