Bilateral trade suffers due to adamant Pak

Bilateral trade suffers due to adamant Pak

FPJ BureauUpdated: Thursday, May 30, 2019, 01:05 AM IST
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New Delhi : India’s bilateral trade with Pakistan suffers because an adamant Pakistan has not reciprocated to accord the “Most Favoured Nation” (MFN) status to India as WTO member as it still bans the import of 1209 products, permitting the transit of only 138 Indian products through the Wagah-Attari land border.

The Minister of State for commerce and industry C R Chaudhary disclosed this in the upper house of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, on Wednesday in a written reply to politician Devender Goud T. He said the prevailing political relationship between the two countries is also a major factor affecting India’s bilateral trade with its neighbour.

Chaudhary said the Commerce Secretaries of the two countries had laid a roadmap in September 2012 during a meeting in Islamabad for several actions in a time-bound manner, including full transition to Most Favoured Nation status to India. The roadmap, however, could not be implemented as Pakistan did not take the first step of removing all restrictions on trade through Wagah-Attari land route. India again pressed for the 2012 roadmap during a meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries in Delhi on May 27, 2014, but no bilateral trade meeting has taken place since then, the Minister said on Wednesday.

In response to a separate question, by  politician Amar Singh, Minister Chaudhary said that the daily average number of Indian export trucks at the Wagah-Attari land border has drastically gone down, from 105 in November 2016, to just around 12 in November 2017. The Minister said instances of quarantine-related difficulties in export of some perishable goods, including vegetables, to Pakistan have been taken up with Islamabad, through the Indian High Commissioner there, for resolution.

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