Pakistan May Give India MFN Status Next Month.

Indian Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar Sunday nsaid Pakistan may grant most favoured nation (MFN) status to India during a visit by that country’s commerce minister Makhdoom Muhammad Ameen Faheen next month.

“My counterpart Zafar Mahmood is committed to MFN treatment to India and the general sense is that they want to open up to more and more trade items between the two countries. Some progress is expected when the country’s commerce minister visits India in September this year,” he said, adding: “A joint working group headed by joint secretaries of two sides will meet in New Delhi next week. A meeting of the commerce ministers in September and commerce secretaries in November will follow.” It is expected that instead of the positive list, Pakistan would have a narrow ‘negative list’ of about 200 items.

This would imply that a whole range of products other than those 200 items could be exported from India on an equal footing (even at concessional terms for some goods under Safta).

The progress in bilateral trade talks stalled for nearly three years has been the outcome of fifth round of talks on commercial and economic cooperation between commerce secretaries in April in Islamabad.

The MFN status would mean that India would enjoy greater trade flexibilities with Pakistan and that too at lower tariffs and higher import quotas. The products that are likely to benefit the most would include textiles, cotton, man-made filaments, vegetables, coffee, tea and spices.

India-Pakistan trade was worth $1.85 billion in 2009-10, of which Indian exports accounted for $1.78 billion. In April-December 2010, bilateral trade is estimated to have jumped to a little over $3 billion with India’s exports at $1.7 billion. It is estimated that if the progress continues, trade volume could triple to $10 billion over the next three years.

Source : nation.com.pk