India being approached to remove NTBs on Pakistan

Commerce Secretary Zafar Mahmood has said the government would approach India to remove Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs) on Pakistan so that trade relations between the two neighbouring countries would be normalised in real terms.
Addressing a dinner hosted by India-Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IPCCI) President S M Muneer, Mahmood said the government had approved a negative list of 1,209 banned items, which will allow trade in all other goods with India, but also sanctioned the phasing out of the negative list in the next ten months.
He said perhaps Pakistan was the only country which had country specific list of items for trade and it was allowed as per the WTO.
He said the issue of granting MFN status to India was decided after several meetings with the business community and that he travelled to Karachi to have meetings with the stakeholders and almost all the business community in Pakistan favoured this move.
He said that after consultations with the industry, it was proposed to add 573 items into the commerce ministry’s list.
Under the World Trade Organisation rules, no state can restrict trade with any other state, but Pakistan has added Annexure G in its trade policy that allows trade with India in limited items. India too has banned investment by Pakistani firms.
In the next 10 months, the local industries would be ready to compete with their Indian counterparts, he hoped.