Pak likely to grant MFN status by Dec-end

India on Wednesday expressed confidence that Pakistan will grant it the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status and honour its assurance on dismantling trade barriers between the two countries.

"It (MFN) is given by all member countries of the WTO to each other. Since India and Pakistan both are members, we have given the MFN status. I am sure Pakistan will do that and honour the assurance that has been given," commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma told reporters here.

In March, Pakistan had moved to a negative list regime from the positive list, opening the Pakistani market for about 7,000 Indian goods as against 2,000 earlier. Pakistan had then said that it would remove the negative list, which contains 1,209 items, by December-end. With the dismantling, India would be technically granted the MFN status .

"Earlier only 18 per cent tariff lines were tradeable. It got reversed and now 82 per cent of the total tariff lines are tradeable," Sharma said, adding that India has also reduced the SAFTA negative list.

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