India Protests : Commerce Minister Anand Sharma’s visit to Lahore
Putting the onus on India, Pakistan today said failure to provide clarity on certain issues raised by it regarding bilateral trade led to the cancellation of Commerce Minister Anand Sharma’s visit to Lahore.
“We agreed on certain things, certain timelines. There were some Pakistani concerns that were raised when the two Commerce Ministers met and there were some Indian concerns,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said.
“But when that communication arrived (from India), it somehow skipped the part that Pakistan was more interested in. So we sought a clarification…And I think the visit was cancelled because we still did not have clarity on how to proceed forward,” she said.
The two sides had agreed “on a number of measures and some timelines to achieve those”, she told a weekly news briefing.
Aslam said there was no delay on Pakistan’s part that led to the cancellation of Sharma’s visit to Lahore for a trade show on Indian products beginning tomorrow. Islamabad is still to receive a clarification from New Delhi about decisions that were made at the meeting of Commerce Ministers last month.
Indian officials had said in New Delhi that Pakistan had not responded to a letter sent by the Commerce Ministry that sought expeditious implementation of issues agreed on by the two sides. They had cited this as the reason for the cancellation of Sharma’s visit.
Three key proposals reportedly agreed on by the two sides are allowing trade of all goods through the Wagah-Attari land border, dismantling the negative list that bars trade in 1,209 items and reducing the sensitive list under the South Asia Free Trade Agreement to 100 items over five years.
Currently, only 137 items can be traded through Attari-Wagah.
Pakistan has missed the December 2012 deadline to eliminate the negative list and give India Most Favoured Nation (MFN)-status. Pakistan has now said it intends to give Non-Discriminatory Market Access (NDMA) to India.
Dismantling the negative list would automatically lead to grant of NDMA, though India has insisted for long on MFN-status. Pakistan has reportedly stipulated that India reduce SAFTA sensitive list drastically in accordance with Islamabad’s wishes prior to the original deadline of three years in case New Delhi intends to normalise trade relations with Islamabad. Commerce Minister Engineer Khurram Dastgir will inaugurate ” The India Show” in Lahore on Friday (today) sans his Indian counterpart Anand Sharma who shelved his Pakistan visit after Islamabad made it clear that trade concessions cannot be offered unilaterally.
Engineer Khurram Dastgir confirmed to Business Recorder that his India counterpart would not attend the inauguration of “The India Show”. In reply to a question, he said the purpose of Indian High Commissioner’s meeting with him was to extend a formal invitation for inauguration of the event on behalf of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
He confirmed that trade normalisation process is facing snags and the process cannot move forward until the irritants are removed by India. Asked if Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit Pakistan in March he replied in the negative. “There are little bottlenecks in bilateral trade but it is feared that advancement in trade normalisation process will have political ramifications,” he added.
The Commerce Minister confirmed that Pakistan has asked India for extraordinary concessions in reducing SAFTA sensitive list immediately. “Pakistan maintains that the final list of sensitive items under SAFTA should be of Islamabad’s choice instead of New Delhi’s. We have requested India to accommodate Pakistan,” he continued.
According to the roadmap, SAFTA sensitive list was to have been phased out in three years which does not suit Pakistan in case the latter extends trade concessions to India. Commerce secretaries of both countries recently met in New Delhi to discuss normalisation of trade relations without any preconditions. Pakistan gave the commitment to facilitate Indian goods at Wagha through enhancement of working hours, number of trucks and containerization.
Pakistani political leadership was expecting India to reciprocate by reducing Safta negative list by 30 percent but that did not happen due to which the process of trade normalisation remains stalled. India refused to reduce Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs) on the plea that its laws are for all countries and not Pakistan-specific. Commerce Ministry sources maintained that elimination of bilateral negative list is not on the cards for the time being and Pakistan has conveyed to New Delhi that the concerned sectors such as auto, agriculture and pharmaceutical opposed to trade normalisation with India cannot be brought on board until India changes its import policy on auto, agriculture and pharmaceutical items. “We are witnessing process on trade ties but progress on political issues is in reverse gear,” said an official on condition of anonymity.
