Indian HC sees enhanced trade with Pak as panacea for all ills

There is a greater realisation in India and Pakistan that increased bilateral trade will act as force multiplier and help reducing poverty, therefore, both the countries need to accelerate efforts for further promoting two-way trade, observed HE TAC Raghavan, High Commissioner of India, while addressing a big gathering of business community at the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

He said all the neighbouring countries might have some differences, but improvement in bilateral trade had the potential to transform all aspect of relations between India and Pakistan. He said the Indian prime minister had urged in his speeches for better relations with all neighbours in order to advance economic growth and investment for reducing poverty and this should be the preferred approach of India and Pakistan to improve living standard of a common man.

He said for improving relations, it was important that India and Pakistan should keep positive things in mind rather than the negatives. He was of the view that things were moving in right direction and more bilateral cooperation could help removing misperceptions. He said the PTV dramas had once again become popular in India and a new movie with a lead role for Pakistani actor was a notable progress.

He said tourism promotion was the quickest way of employment generation and India had signed a protocol of tourism with Pakistan to promote bilateral tourism and efforts were afoot to address issues including NTBs between the two countries. He said the Indian High Commission had planned to hold regular video conferences and smaller networking sessions with Pakistan chambers and assured to play a facilitative role in grant of visas to Pakistani businessmen.

Speaking at the occasion, Trade Development Authority of Pakistan Chief Executive SM Munir said that TDAP’s recent Pakistan Lifestyle Expo in India achieved good success and thanked Indian authorities for their support for the said expo. He said being close neighbours, Pakistan and India had great potential to promote bilateral trade and both the countries should open more trade routes for realising the available potential. He urged for allowing mobile roaming service and establishing bank branches in both countries. He said both the governments should adopt open visa policy and India should grant business visa for all cities instead of giving just 10 cities. He also urged both countries to open up formal banking channels to ease the business transactions.

In his welcome address, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Shaban Khalid said that bilateral trade of around USD 3-billion was much below the true potential of Pakistan and India. He said more trade was taking place via third channel and stressed that Pakistan and India should facilitate direct trade to achieve win-win results. He said both the countries should establish direct air links and open more road links to improve bilateral trade and people-to-people contacts.

Shaban Khalid said Pakistan and India were suffering from common issues including poverty and added that promoting trade was the best avenue to reduce poverty. He said a common man should be the priority focus of their policies and emphasized that both countries should undo police reporting policy for visitors which was proving a serious inconvenience. He said both the sides needed to improve trade infrastructure to bring it at par with international standards and address all NTBs to facilitate business. He vowed to work with the Indian HC for bringing both countries even closer in trade and economic relations.