Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday said it would re-start work on improving trade ties with arch-rival India when the two nations’ foreign ministers meet in Islamabad next month.
Pakistan had pledged to grant India “Most Favoured Nation (MFN)” status by the end of 2012, meaning Indian exports would be treated the same as those from other nations, but so far has not done so.
India granted Pakistan MFN status in 1999.
“When the dialogue process resumes, we hope to build on the work already done in this regard,” Pakistan’s top foreign ministry bureaucrat Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry said at a weekly press briefing.
The foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India are set to meet in Islamabad on August 25 in the neighbouring countries’ latest attempt at improving ties.
The proposed meeting, announced by Pakistan’s foreign office on Wednesday, comes after Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi following the Hindu hardliner’s inauguration in May.
Chaudhry said there were number of issues on both sides for normalising bilateral trade which included “making sure that vulnerable sectors are protected and the issue of the non-tariff barriers in India and the issue of imbalance of trade and certain other infrastructure-related issue.”
MFN status will mean India can export 6,800 items to Pakistan, up from around 2,000 at present, and the countries aim to lift bilateral trade to $6 billion within three years, officials have said.
Trade between the two countries is presently around $2.5 billion, with Indian exports accounting for $1.75 billion, according to the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
India in August 2012 lifted a ban on foreign investment from Pakistan except in defence, space and atomic energy in a step designed to build goodwill amid the renewed push for a peace settlement.
