Pakistan urges India to liberalise trade policy

Mumbai, Feb 17: Pakistan's Commerce Minister today urged the Indian government for adopting the trade liberalisation policies to give a boost to the Indo-Pak trade.

Participating in the panel discussion as part of the second SAARC Business Leaders Conclave (SBLC), which began here today, Pakistan's State Minister for Commerce, Hamid Yaar Hiraj, said ''Pakistan has liberalised its imports from India and hence he recommended the Indian government too for adopting such policies. ''Despite grant of MFN status to my country, balance of trade has remained in favour of India over last few years,'' he said. Some of the other suggestions made by Hiraj to give a boost to bilateral trade between the two countries, include going for intra-regional investment, exploring avenues for joint ventures and ensuring effective and meaningful regional economic integration.

Speaking on the occasion, Chairman of Pakistan Nestle, Yawar Ali, said ''Three commodities are priceless in the In the 21st century for the South Asian countries which include imagination (generate new ideas), innovation (turn these ideas into products) and finally implementation (make these new products available to the market of the region). Also, he suggested that there was a huge potential for exchange of trade in the sector of milk production in Pakistan.

Union External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, is likely to formally inaugurate the two-day conference later today. He was scheduled to attend the event during morning session itself, however his flight was delayed due to fog in New Delhi the FICCI organisers told sources.

The focus of the SBLC is to develop new mindsets and changing attitude in the SAARC region to ensure economic and social prosperity. The conclave will address the common challenges that incorporate the whole region, particularly India and Pakistan.

Raising the business licence issue, Nepal's Finance Minister, Ram Sharan Mahat, said ''It normally takes 5-6 days for the issuance of business licence which creates problems before the entrepreneurs of the region to do their trade in the SAARC countries.'' Hence he suggested all the SAARC nations to take this issue seriously and ensure that it was issued in as short period as possible.

UNI