No discussion so far on withdrawal of MFN to Pakistan: Nirmala Sitharaman

NEW DELHI: India has so far not deliberated on the issue of retracting the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status granted to Pakistan, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, refusing to comment on whether it should be revoked.

“On the issue of the withdrawal of MFN from Pakistan, strictly speaking, that has not yet been discussed-…we had extended MFN on goodwill but it was not reciprocated,” the minister said at a conference on Friday.

India granted MFN status, which provides non-discriminatory access to its market, to Pakistan in 1996. Under World Trade Organization norms, member-countries are mandated to give this status to each other on a reciprocal basis. However, Pakistan has not accorded MFN to India. Last month, there were reports that a high-level review meeting to revoke the status would be held in the wake of a terror attack on an army camp in Uri that killed 19 soldiers.

BIMSTEC MEET
At a separate event, Sitharaman said India would “work actively” to get consensus on a free-trade agreement among the seven-member BIMSTEC grouping. BIMSTEC, or the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, is a grouping of countries in South Asia and South East Asia – Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

Members had signed a framework agreement in February 2004 to establish a freetrade area to increase the flow of goods and services in the region but no pact has been signed till now.

“It is a shame that to move around in this (region) which is otherwise very well connected – the Bay of Bengal links us, land routes link us – in spite of that, it is so arduous,” she said, while pitching to boost sea and port connectivity. On the domestic front, Sitharaman said the government has begun a review of the foreign trade policy with the objective of conducting mid-course corrections in export schemes if required in order to address problems pertaining to logistics costs and taxation.