‘High time to increase trade with India’


‘High time to increase trade with India’

By our correspondent

LAHORE: Pakistan and India have tremendous trade potential and it is high time that the two countries should enhance trade, said Ibrahim Qureshi, president of the Business Forum of Punjab (BFP), on Tuesday.

Holding of Indo-Pak trade conference in the city is a step in the right direction, as it will cater to the larger interest of 1.6 billion people of the two countries, he said.

Qureshi appreciated opening an independent trade gate a few weeks ago and stressed upon the two governments to consider further opening of trade routes. “We need to expand trade to the benefit of the common man on both sides of the border,” he said.

The business community should act as a pressure group to lobby for a congenial environment for bilateral trade between India and Pakistan, he said.

Qureshi said that the BFP has always supported trade relations between the two countries with a firm belief that only good economics can ensure good politics, he said. India and Pakistan can benefit from each others’ agriculture, food processing, banking, pharmaceutical, textile products and machinery, cement, oil and gas, automobile, information technology and tea by opening their economies to each other, he added.

Time has come to constitute sector-specific groups and think-tanks to assist and facilitate respective governments on the subject, said Qureshi, adding that the journey ahead is yet arduous, as Pakistan has to remove the negative list by coming in December provided that India is ready to do away with the non-tariff barriers (NTBs).

The dream of $10 billion bilateral trade by 2015 from the existing level of $2.7 billion can only be materialised if respective governments, besides the business community, are eager to act in the larger interest of the people of the two countries, he added.

However, he resolved that the business community would never let the defining moment slip away.

He also expressed the hope that the visa facility for businessmen would be relaxed further. Furthermore, he said, the signing of an agreement between the home secretaries of two countries to abolish police checking is another milestone in building up relations, he said.

The logistics is the area to be focused upon by the government policymakers to facilitate trade, besides removing the customs-specific bottlenecks, he added.




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