Visiting co-chair of the India-Pakistan Joint Business Forum (IPJBF) Syed Yawar Ali said here on Friday that the two neighbours should consider negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs).
Speaking to reporters after the fourth meeting of the IPJBF, Mr. Ali also expressed the hope that Islamabad would soon grant the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India as the formalities on the matter had already been completed. Pakistan is yet to reciprocate India’s grant of MFN status to it in 1996.
In a statement issued after the conclusion of the IPJBF meeting, Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit said in a statement: “There is need to address concerns relating to market access, tariff and non-tariff barriers... Innovative proposals and ideas may also be explored which can help create economic inter-dependence between the two countries”.
Speaking at the plenary meeting of the forum, he said that the meeting between the two Prime Ministers in New Delhi on May 27 was very positive, where both leaders agreed to move forward from confrontation to cooperation. He also said that Pakistan was looking forward to a meaningful and result-oriented dialogue process at the meeting between the foreign secretaries of two countries scheduled for August 25 in Islamabad.
The PIJBF has constituted 10 task forces including for agriculture, banking and finance, energy, visa facilitation, textiles, automobiles, engineering and IT that will recommend steps and policies that the two neighbours could take for increasing bilateral trade and investments.
The task force on the auto sector has recommended pruning of the negative list of Pakistani imports from India to exclude auto components, said India co-chair of the IPJBF Sunil Kant Munjal. Since Pakistan imported from other countries they were keen to also source these products from India, he said adding that India would like to export raw material for the Pakistani auto sector.
Pakistan Business Council Chairman Sikander Mustafa Khan said that the task force would over the next two months identify the items that could be removed from the negative list allowing exports from India of those products.
