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Pakistan's decision to implement the process to grant India the status of most favoured nation (MFN), as and when that actually comes into effect, will have a “very positive” impact on Indo-Pakistan trade, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Ranjan Mathai, said on Saturday.
“And certainly, through that it could impact the overall intra-South Asian Regional Cooperation trade,” Mr Mathai said at a press conference.
Outlining the process, the Foreign Secretary said the actual statement by the Pakistan Cabinet is that the Ministry of Commerce has the mandate to take forward the process of normalisation of trade relations between India and Pakistan which would culminate in the observance of the most-favoured-nation principle in its true spirit.
“According to the information available through the Pakistan Government, the Cabinet has approved the process of normalisation of trade relations, of which MFN is a part. The actual implementation would be culmination of the normalisation process which could take some more time,” Mr Mathai said.
The Foreign Secretary added that he did not have an exact time frame (for Pakistan granting MFN status to India). “As they said, it is going to be a normalisation process. So we will establish what exactly would be the time frame as we go along. But we do not expect it to take a very long time,” he said.
PTI reports: ThePakistani Prime Minister, Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani, on Saturday said Islamabad will engage New Delhi for both trade and dialogue to resolve all matters including “core issues”, hours after going back on granting the MFN status to India.
“We should do trade and talks with them.... All our core issues, including Kashmir, we will have talks with them,” he told reporters here on the sidelines of an official function this afternoon. He said that the country will have a uniform policy for India to resolve all issues.
Earlier, Mr Gilani said that Pakistan had not granted the MFN status to India, saying that its Commerce Ministry had only been tasked to move forward on the issue in bilateral negotiations.
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