Pakistan to have a larger negative list if NTBs not removed by India

Even though Pakistan has shown commitment to grant the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India, the trade between the two neighbouring countries is still likely to be regulated through a larger negative list until the non-tariff barriers (NTB) are removed by New Delhi to allow unhindered access to Pakistani products.
Commerce Secretary Zafar Mehmood will be visiting India on a two-day visit on November 14-15 to hold parleys on the bilateral trade issues with his Indian counterpart, to work out modalities and roadmap for trade liberalisation and removing non-tariff barriers. Talking to Pakistan Today, Zafar Mehmood said India would have to dismantle all NTBs to Pakistan’s satisfaction to get the MFN status. He said MFN did not mean any sort of preferential arrangement, rather it created a conducive environment for trading partners so that they could be able to do business. On the negative list, he said the government was ready to put more items on the list, provided the relevant manufacturers gave proper reasoning for putting it in the negative list. He said Indian goods would not be allowed to reach Afghanistan even after the grant of MFN status to New Delhi. The status of sensitive list under South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) would remain the same, as import of 233 items would not be allowed from India. An official source said Pakistan would be maintaining a larger negative list for trade with India until the NTBs were not removed. Most of the products to be safeguarded would be from the steel, automobile and pharmaceutical sectors, which are less competitive than Indian products. Pakistani textiles products could create a niche in India provided NTBs were removed. India had granted MFN status to Pakistan in 1996, but due to NTBs, Pakistani goods could not make inroads into Indian markets.
Pakistan trades with India under positive list which includes 1,946 items, while India disallows export of 850 items to Pakistan. The bilateral trade between both countries is $2.6 billion, which is planned to be enhanced to over $6 billion in next three years. The trade negotiations between the two countries were revived in April this year after a gap of four years with the commerce secretary-level talks, in which both countries softened down their traditional stance. Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had said during their visit to India that Pakistan has no objection to granting MFN status to India. A positive gesture was shown by New Delhi during the visit of the Pakistani commerce minister in September, when it assured support to Pakistan for getting approval from the World Trade Organisation for getting concessional access to European markets.