Pakistan decides to open market for Indian products

ISLAMABAD: In a move that will throw big opportunities for Indian exporters, Pakistan decided to allow import of 6,800 items from India against only about 1,950 at present.

The Pakistani Cabinet has unanimously approved a proposal to switch over to a negative list (NL) regime, that permits imports from India of all but 1,200 items in the NL.

Further, the NL will be phased out by the year-end, leading to the grant of the much-awaited Most Favoured Nation ( MFN) to India by Pakistan.

A meeting of the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani "unanimously approved the phasing out of the negative list" regime between Pakistan and India by December, said a brief statement issued by the Premier's office.

Welcoming Pakistan's policy initiative to liberalise bilateral trade, India's Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said that the move would open business opportunities by providing market access to Indian goods in the neighbouring country.

Sharma said that this development reaffirms the commitment of both the governments for trade normalisation.

"This will mark a dramatic shift in the lines that can be traded as now almost 90 per cent items can be traded with Pakistan as opposed to 17 per cent (at present)," he said.

Direct trade between India and Pakistan constitutes less than one per cent of their respective global trade.

India exported goods worth $2.33 billion to Pakistan last year while its imports were $330 million.

The decision follows several rounds of talks between the Commerce Secretaries and Commerce Ministers of the two sides since April 2011.