Will deliver on promises to normalise ties with India: Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan today said it will deliver on promises made to India regarding normalisation of bilateral trade ties amidst indications that a final call could be made on the issue as soon as Friday.

"The previous PPP government made certain promises to India on trade and we will deliver on these promises. The promises were made by Pakistan government and we are not promising anything extra," Information Minister Parvaiz Rashid told reporters here.

Top government officials told PTI that a cabinet meeting would be held on Friday.

However, they remained tight-lipped when asked if the issue of Non-Discriminatory Market Access ( NDMA) status to India would be part of the agenda.

The Commerce Ministry here will submit a summary to the cabinet on the "updated position" on the trade normalisation process with India.

While Pakistan had initially agreed to granting MFN status to India, the term has been replaced with NDMA.

NDMA is a nomenclature chosen by the Pakistan government to avoid political ramifications at home of giving India the most-favoured nation (MFN) status.

Miftah Ismail, special assistant to the prime minister and chairman of the Board of Investment, had recently told the local media that India had accepted Islamabad's demand to remove textile products from its prohibitive list.

A special government panel chaired by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has already decided to ask the cabinet to approve a fresh roadmap for granting NDMA status to India.

India has agreed to provide a level playing field to Pakistani traders and will give tariff concession on various products pertaining to strong sectors such as textile, cement, surgical instruments from here.

If the deal is inked, the officials argued, then Pakistan will easily reach out to the biggest market of over 1 billion people and India will have access to 200 million people.

The European envoy here Lars-Gunnar Wigemark has said liberalisation of trade with India would bring the prices down in Pakistan.