Pranab Mukherjee says sky is the limit for India-Pakistan business

New Delhi, May 18 (ANI): Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said that sky is the limit for India-Pakistan trade to flourish.

Speaking at the at the Indo-Pak business meet here, Mukherjee said: "Indian exports to Pakistan declined by 26.88 percent over previous years to1439.88 million dollars and Indian imports from Pakistan increased by 28.54 percent over the previous year to 362.07 million dollars.

"The figures are just to indicate that what immense potentialities exist between two countries and perhaps, sky is the limit where we can expand our economic activities including trade and commerce," he added.

He suggested a range of areas where such cooperation could lead to better economic cooperation.

"The most important factors to improve the economic cooperation are improvement in communication, liberalisation of the trade regime, creation of transit facilities, unfiltered and free movement of goods, transit trade to Afghanistan and Central Asia, replacement of existing positive list by negative list of goods beyond which it would permit imports from India and improvement in infrastructure for trade and transport," he said.

Mukherjee also said the two countries have not signed any formal trade agreement but India has declared Pakistan the most favoured nation.

Mukherjee said that improving bilateral trade is not a distant dream but a vision.

Besides Mukherjee those who present were Amin Hashwani, President, Pakistan-India CEOs Business Forum, Shahrukh Hasan, Group Managing Director, The Jang Group, N R Narayan Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies Ltd., Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, UIDAI. (ANI)