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India and Pakistan will resume trade normalisation talks on the sidelines of the meeting of the SAFTA Ministerial Council in Bhutan next month.
Commerce Ministers from both India and Pakistan have confirmed that they will attend the meeting and are likely to hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the event, Commerce Ministry Joint Secretary Arvind Mehta told reporters on Tuesday.
Pakistani High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit, however, refused to give a commitment on when his country would extend the ‘Non-Discriminatory Market Access’ status to India as promised in the trade liberalisation schedule.
“Bilateral talks have resumed. Both Prime Ministers have met and talked about all issues. We hope things will be carried forward when the time comes,” Basit told the media at an India-Pakistan event organised by FICCI when asked about the pending matter.
Once Pakistan extends NDMA status to India, the import ban on the remaining 1,209 products from the country would go. India already allows all imports from Pakistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif at his swearing in ceremony last month, had said that India was prepared to go for full trade normalisation with Pakistan based on the road map already agreed to by both countries.
According to the road-map, Pakistan will have to extend the NDMA status to India following which the country would reciprocate by lowering duties on items of Pakistan’s interest.
Mehta said India was ready to bring down duties on crucial items including textiles from Pakistan to 5 per cent or below as agreed to in the trade normalisation schedule. But it would happen only when Pakistan extends NDMA to India.
Pakistan has already increased the number of items allowed from India from just about 2,000 items to more than 6,800 in the last three years since the trade normalisation process started.
The Pakistani Cabinet, which reportedly seemed ready to extend the NDMA status to India in April, postponed the decision in the lastminute preferring to wait for the new Government.
The Indo-Pak trade dialogue, which has the potential of increasing bilateral trade from the current $3 billion to an estimated $ 10 billion, was stalled in January 2013 following violence at the Line of Control in Kashmir.
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