KARACHI: Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has waived off customs and regulatory duties on imports from Azerbaijan under the Pakistan-Azerbaijan Preferential Trade Agreement, the finance ministry said in a notification this month.
During Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev’s two-day visit to Pakistan in July, both nations agreed to enhance the volume of bilateral trade to $2 billion, vowing to strengthen ties and increase cooperation in mutually beneficial economic projects. They also signed the Pakistan-Azerbaijan Preferential Trade Agreement to boost economic cooperation through the reduction of tariffs on goods like Pakistani sports equipment, leather, and pharmaceuticals as well as Azerbaijani oil and gas products.
“The federal government is pleased to exempt with effect from Dec. 16, 2024, the import into Pakistan from Azerbaijan of the goods specified,” the finance ministry said in a notification. adding that imports from Azerbaijan would be exempted from all kinds of tariffs including customs duty, additional customs duty and regulatory duty.
“Provided that where the rates of customs duty, additional customs duty, and regulatory duty [...] are higher than specified rates, the lower rates [...] shall apply,” it added.
The tariff concessions cover items including shelled hazelnuts or filberts, apricots, vegetable saps and extracts, non-stemmed tobacco, polyethylene, propylene copolymers, casing, tubing, drill pipes and refined copper wire with a maximum cross-sectional dimension exceeding 6 mm.
In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of visits, investment talks and economic activity between officials from Pakistan and the Central Asian nations as well as other transcontinental and landlocked countries like Azerbaijan as Islamabad seeks to consolidate the South Asian nation’s role as a pivotal trade and transit hub.
