With domestic political pressure building up in Islamabad on New Delhi’s delay in reciprocating Pakistan’s gesture of granting India Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, the Indian commerce and industry ministry plans to prune its sensitive list of imports by up to 30 per cent.
India’s sensitive list of Pakistani imports has 878 items, mostly textiles and chemicals products, which attract high import duties.
“We may knock off some 263 items from our sensitive list,” a senior official of the Department of Commerce told The Indian Express.
The sectoral break-up of the items will be firmed up during the commerce secretary-level talks in the second week of April. “Details will be chalked out during our talks with Pakistan’s Senior Minister of Commerce Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Commerce Secretary Zafar Mahmood, who will be here for the Pakistan Expo,” the official said.
Besides, appreciating Pakistan’s decision to shift to a negative list (1,209 items that cannot be exported from India) from the earlier positive list, Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram and Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma,
accompanied by Fahim, will inaugurate the newly built integrated check post along the Wagah-Attari border on Baisakhi, April 13.
“The chief ministers of Punjab from either side of the border are also likely to be present,” another Department of Commerce official said.
India allows exports of about 12,000 items from South Asian countries. Under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), India’s imports are classified under two lists: the MFN list, which allows countries to have the same
tariff on items they export to India, and the sensitive list, which is different for least developed countries (LDCs) and non-LDCs.
India’s sensitive list for LDCs (Bangladesh is an LDC) has just 25 items, essentially demerit goods such as liquor and tobacco. The non-LDC sensitive list (Pakistan is a non-LDC) has 878 items and includes a large number of
textiles products, making Pakistan non-competitive vis-a-vis Bangladesh when it comes to exports to India.
Actually, India is playing big game with Pakistan. However, Indian sincerity can only be gauged by just one action and that is, it must remove non tarrif barriers specially reacted to stop goods of Pakistani origin in India. This is the crux of the matter. Nothing less, nothing more.
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