ISLAMABAD: Minister for Commerce, Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar has favored trade with India and said under the Marakish Accord, Pakistan would have to offer the status of Most Favored Nation (MEN) to New Delhi. He said India could be given MEN status in the next few months, “How can we deny MEN status to India which it has already offered to Pakistan and we hope India would soon be removing tariff and nontariff restrictions {0 facilitate trade between the two countries,” he told newsmen after making a speech in a prejudged seminar organized by Forum of Economic Writers here on Saturday, June 8.

Moreover, he said, Pakistan had an international commitment to fulfill to offer this MEN status to India. He said the government had in principle agreed to offer MEN to India and to have meaningful bilateral trade, But it was still studying the likely practical impact of opening trade with its giant neighbor. “The report is not yet finalized,” he said, adding that it could be ready by August.

“We are carrying out studies in different sectors, the engineering sector, the agriculture sector, and then we have narrowed the sectors in which we play a very major role and once the report comes back on these studies then we will be able to finally decide granting of this status,” Mukhtar added.

Asked whether it was not necessary to forge consensus in the Parliament over the issue, the commerce minister pointed out that there was not much difference of opinion between the treasury and the opposition benches to formally start this trade, He told a reporter that this was during late President ZiaulHaq’s period when for the first time the idea was floated to have trade between the two countries. “Later, Nawaz Sharif government also took up the issue and did not oppose it.”

He was asked whether Pakistan will comprise its political interests especially its stand on Azad Kashmir by favoring trade with India. “

You must not forget that France and Germany were trading with another when they were at war,” he said, adding that there was no need to be worried about it while starting trade with India. To a question Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar said so far no date had been fixed for allowing trade between India and Pakistan and referred to India’s commerce minister and now a finance minister that he too was taking interest to resolve the issue. “India is a country of 980 million people and as such Pakistan will have an opportunity to get such a big market by starting formal trade with India,” he told a questionnaire.

About restrictions, he said that the European Union had also taken up the issue with India and asked it to remove these restrictions.

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 26, 1996