ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has not yet granted non-discriminatory market access (NDMA) and Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India. However, both Pakistan and India have agreed to expedite work on granting reciprocal non-discriminatory market access (NDMA) to each other and the Indian trade minister will visit Lahore for the purpose next week.
Federal Minister for Commerce Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan told Senate while responding to identical questions put forward by lawmakers.
The federal minister for commerce elaborated that the government had invited Indian trade minister to inaugurate an exhibition of Indian goods scheduled to be held in Lahore from February 14. Dastgir asserted that parleys were also underway between the two countries to provide a level playing field for trade and investment.
He also informed the Upper House of the Parliament that India had granted MFN status to Pakistan in 1996, however, Pakistan was still considering the issue. Dastgir pointed out that Indian did not have prepared positive or negative lists of tradeable items with Pakistan rather it had sensitive lists which consisted of 1,700 items, adding that talks were underway to reduce the number of items on the lists.
The federal commerce minister pointed out that the NDMA did not entail treating imports from a particular country at par with imports from other trading partners in terms of market access and imposition of custom tariff, adding that similarly the MFN was a term used in the WTO agreement. He explained the term (WTO) implied that any advantage, privilege or immunity granted to a WTO member on any product originating in or destined for any other country and has to be accorded immediately and unconditionally to the like product originating in or destined for the territories of all other WTO member countries.
