Pakistan mulls MFN status for India

He said both countries were seeking to loosen restrictions on business visas by November in a bid to “rapidly expand the vistas of bilateral commerce”.

In April,India and Pakistan had laid out a road map to increase trade to $6 billion in three years and replaced a “positive list”,which mentions the items eligible for trade,to a “negative” list specifying ineligible goods and services.

The meet ended Fahim’s visit,the first by a Pakistani commerce minister in 35 years. Fahim said the April agreement,and a promise at Mohali by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to back an EU move for special market access for Pakistan,had paved the way for normalised trade relations.

The two neighbours were “poised to open bank branched and land routes” and would hopefully soon remove all non-tariff barriers.

“Both sides are committed that they would make this dialogue process irreversible,” he said.

Fahim also hoped that “unnecessary long sensitive lists may be considerably reduced” to make the South Asian Free Trade Area “meaningful and effective”.

His words echoed Sharma’s,who had warned that the countries needed to continue on the path towards liberalising trade and investment flows. “We have made progress but the timelines should be short timelines. The negative list should be a short negative list.”