India has expressed concerns at the loss of over $250 million annually in its textile trade due to the discriminatory concessions extended by the European Union to Pakistan under the revised generalised system of preferences regime.

The issue was raised by India at the seventh meeting of the Indo-Spanish joint commission held in Madrid last week, an official media release in New Delhi said.

The Indian side led by commerce secretary Dipak Chatterjee expressed concern at the adverse impact on the trade of clothing and made-up products due to discriminatory concessions extended by the European Union to Pakistan under the drug regime of the revised GSP scheme.

India pointed out that the discriminatory concessions had made the exports of textiles from Pakistan cheaper by 10 per cent making the Indian exports uncompetitive, resulting in a trade loss of about 250 million dollars annually, it said.

Spain, however, clarified that the concessions were a consequence of the special inclusion of Pakistan in the GSP for combating drug trafficking. It also pointed out that for textiles item, the custom treatment under the GSP regime was the same for India and Pakistan.

India also drew Spain's attention to the repeated recourse to anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations by the European Union against the import of textiles from India and expressed disappointment over the slow pace of integration of the textile items by EU under the World Trade Organisation's agreement on textiles and clothing.

In order to enhance market access for marine products, the Indian side suggested a memorandum of understanding between the Export Inspection Council of India and its counterpart to tackle difficulties faced by Indian products, including fish and fish products in Spain.

Both sides agreed to study requests made by either sides and to accommodate them if possible to mitigate mutual concerns regarding anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations.

The two sides also took note of the importance of the current WTO negotiations and emphasised the need to clarify aspects of actual anti-dumping and anti-subsidy agreements to avoid the current abuses, it said.

Both countries also agreed to work towards facilitating greater investment by Spanish companies in India.