Pakistan to grant India status of most favoured nation

In the wake of an upcoming meeting between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan in Islamabad next month, Pakistan said that it would recommence work in order to improve its relationship with India.

According to Dawn, while India granted Pakistan "Most Favoured Nation (MFN)" status in 1999, Pakistan had pledged to grant India MFN status by the end of 2012, meaning Indian exports would be treated the same as those from other nations, but has so far not done so.

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry told a weekly press briefing that when the dialogue process resumes, Pakistan hopes to build on the work already done in this regard.

He said that a number of issues were to be addressed on both sides in order to normalize bilateral trade, which included making sure that vulnerable sectors are protected and the issue of the non-tariff barriers in India and the issue of imbalance of trade and certain other infrastructure-related issues.

Pakistani officials said that if India was granted the MFN status, India would be able to export at least 6,800 items to Pakistan, up from around 2,000 at present, the report added.

The countries also intend to raise bilateral trade to 6 billion dollars in the next three years.

The meeting between the foreign secretaries of the two neighbouring nations is scheduled for Aug 25 in Islamabad.