Pitching for increased investments between the two countries, Pakistan on Wednesday said it wants to re-cast its commercial engagement with India and asked New Delhi to permit cross-border investment.
This was stated by the visiting Pakistan Commerce Minister, Makhdoom Amin Fahim during his interaction with the leading business chamber, FICCI here. “I hope India allows investments from Pakistan,” he added.
Pakistan High Commissioner to India, Shahid Malik, who accompanied Mr. Fahim said: “In fact, there are no investment restrictions in Pakistan. There are restrictions in India to invest. At present, the India-Pakistan economic relations are restricted to the merchandise trade of just about USD 2.65 billion (2010-11).”
India has both investment and trade ties with other neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. However, no investment or technology partnership has been built between India and Pakistan whose relations have been marred by lack of mutual trust over the years.
Mr. Fahim said he would want to see deepening of bilateral trade and business ties and wanted the two countries to remove bottlenecks in the bilateral. “Gradually, I hope that it will be repositioned. We have to move step by step,” the Pakistan Trade Minister said.
FICCI had organised the India-Pakistan business-to-business meeting, which was also attended by senior government officials from the two sides. Mr. Fahim said problems like visa restrictions need to be sorted out. “Visa issue is one of the important ones. Definitely, we two sides will deliberate on this,” he said.
