Islamabad: The speakers at a seminar agreed that while creating greater awareness on the World Trade Organization (WTO) related issues, Pakistan should prepare itself for facing the challenges emerging under the WTO regime. Pakistan, they said, should also build its capacity to harness the opportunities, which might become available to it, especially in the areas in which it enjoys comparative advantage. The two-day consultation on 'Consumer Protection in the Emerging WTO Regimes: Challenges, Preparedness and Needs' was organized by the consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The consultation, attended by a number of WTO experts in the public and private sectors, focused mainly on General Agreement in Trade in Services (GATS), Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measures (SPS), Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Singapore Issues. The speakers highlighted the implications of WTO in sectors of education, energy, telecommunication, financial services and issues of quality and standards with special reference to GATS. Separate sessions of these sectors followed the plenary in which participants and speakers of the consultation floated suggestions and recommendations regarding future strategy of Pakistan with reference to Pakistan's commitments under GATS.

While speaking on the first day of the seminar, Chairman Parliamentarians Commission for Human Rights Riaz Fatyana said: " We must prepare ourselves to face the challenges that the WTO regime poses and benefit from opportunities that it offers. We must in particular be mindful of the risks because it is quite likely that our industry and service sector will not be able to compete with foreign companies and hence we shall lose out."
Fatyana pointed out that many people were likely to become unemployed, while it was not clear if the international market players would be willing to go to the rural markets where possibilities of profit making would be less. He called upon the regulators to increase their capacity and improve the quality of their regulatory processes to ensure competition in the market as well as consumer protection

IOther speakers who spoke on the WTO regime included Dr. Zubair, Dr. Wajid Pirzada, Dr. Abid Sulehri, Fasihuddin and Mushtaq. There was consensus among the speakers that there was a need for consumers to become proactive and engage with the relevant government departments and regulatory bodies to ensure that consumer interests were protected in the WTO negotiations. They also demanded that the government must consult consumers and other groups in the society before making any commitments at WTO.

Ms. Shehnaz Wazir Ali chaired the session on the potential impacts of General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS) for the education sector in Pakistan. She commended CRCP for organizing such a talk as no debate had ever been held before in Pakistan on such a crucial topic. Speakers in the session included Mukhtar Ahmad Ali.