The Hindu Business Line : India, Pakistan to improve trade ties

"Pakistan would consider enlarging the list of important items from India in consultation with stakeholders and after fulfilling legal and procedural formalities."

New Delhi , March 29

India and Pakistan on Wednesday hailed the ratification of South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) by all the seven-member countries which they described would pave the way for enhanced regional trade and strengthening innate synergies of the participating countries.

A joint statement issued in Islamabad by the two sides at the conclusion of the Third Round of Pakistan-India talks on `Economic and commercial cooperation' within the framework of the composite dialogue, a raft of important decisions were announced.

Pakistan would consider enlarging the list of important items from India in consultation with stakeholders and after fulfilling legal and procedural formalities, an official release issued here said.

Tea import

Pakistan would import more tea from India with both sides resolving that they would encourage delegation of importers and exporters of tea to visit the two respective countries so as to expedite import from India.

With the proposed new shipping agreement coming into force, import of tea by Islamabad from India would be enabled further.

Bank branches

In line with the announcement of the Prime Minister of Pakistan on his visit to India in November 2004, the central banks in both the countries would process applications by banks expeditiously in order to open branches of scheduled banks in each country.

In order to identify the problems of transportation of goods by train between India and Pakistan, the relevant ministries of both sides had a meeting on the sidelines of the talks.

Pakistan and India would set up a working group to discuss the issues pertaining to joint registration of basmati rice as Geographical Indication (GI).

India would provide exhaustive proposals for trade in IT-enabled medical services and export insurance cooperation for consideration by Pakistan, even while an MoU on assistance of mutual cooperation in capital markets has been conveyed by Pakistan SECP to their counterpart in India.

It was agreed that New Delhi would communicate its response soon.

Optical fibre laying

It was noted with satisfaction that the laying of optical fibre on the Indian side would be completed in the near future.

It was also noted that the imitative on liberalisation of visa regime would be discussed in the relevant segment of the composite dialogue.

The Indian proposal to convene a meeting of the relevant technical-level experts at the Attari-Wagah border to draw up proposals to upgrade infrastructure to enable trade including export of transit cargo of Afghanistan was noted by Pakistan.

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