ISLAMABAD: The cabinet deferred on Tuesday finalisation of negative list for trade with India and directed the ministry of commerce to consult stakeholders before preparing the list.
Briefing newsmen after a meeting of the cabinet presided over by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Information Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said the decision had been delayed because several stakeholders had expressed reservations over the move.
She said the cabinet, however, approved for initialling three agreements aimed at removing bottlenecks in facilitating the trade between the two countries. According to a summary of the commerce ministry, a negative list of 636 items prepared by the industries which wanted full protection against imports from India has been proposed for approval of the cabinet.
The ministry has prepared the list in consultation with stakeholders. But the minister said the stakeholders were not consulted.
She pointed out that the ministries of interior and textiles were among the stakeholders who had expressed reservations over the proposal.
Ms Awan said the prime minister deferred the change in trade regime on the plea that enough homework had not been done on it.
An official statement issued by the prime minister’s secretariat said that the cabinet directed the ministry of commerce to consult all stakeholders before the preparation and finalisation of the negative list.
A source privy to the cabinet meeting told Dawn that Prime Minister Gilani did not allow the commerce secretary to address to concerns being raised by various ministries over the proposed list.
The secretary, according to the source, sought permission to respond to the queries but the premier was not willing to approve it. Mr Gilani asked the secretary to meet the stakeholders and remove their concerns before making a final decision, added the source.
Another source said the prime minister might have delayed the decision because of sensitivity of the issue and political uncertainty after the Supreme Court indicted him.
At the same time, powerful sectors like textiles and pharmaceuticals and auto manufacturers were opposing trade liberalisation with India.
Some rightwing political parties had recently also voiced their concerns against liberalisation of trade with India.
Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik told Hindustan Times that deferring of changing trade regime with India was just a matter of time and a decision in this regard would be taken soon. “The ongoing political developments may have delayed a decision but it will eventually come,” he said.
A source in the commerce ministry said that queries being raised at the cabinet meeting would be taken up with the relevant ministries in due course of time. “We will submit the summary again in the next cabinet meeting.” In principle, there was no objection against the decision, he said.
The unexpected cabinet decision came when Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma was visiting Pakistan with around 120 industrialists amid hopes to improve trade and commercial ties between the two countries.
But the cabinet gave approval to the signing of three agreements on mutual assistance in customs matters, cooperation for mutual recognition between the Bureau of Indian Standards and the Pakistan Standard and Quality Control Authority and redressing trade grievances between the two sides.
A commerce ministry official said the agreements would be signed on Wednesday following talks in Islamabad between Commerce Minister Amin Fahim and his Indian counterpart Anand Sharma.
Under the existing positive list regime, the two sides can trade less than 2,000 items. However, with the proposed negative the number of tradable items from India will increase four times. The negative list will include only those items that cannot be traded.
Trade between India and Pakistan constitutes less than one per cent of their respective global trade. India exported goods worth $2.33 billion to Pakistan last year while Pakistan exported a mere $ 330 million.
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