Karzai Proposes India-Pakistan Trade Corridor
Agencies

NEW DELHI, 24 February 2005 — Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai yesterday proposed a trade corridor for Indian exports to Afghanistan through Pakistan during his three-day official visit to India.

Karzai said he would take up the issue with the Pakistan government, the spokesperson of India’s Ministry of External Affairs said. The bulk of trade between India and Afghanistan is currently via Iran.

During his meeting yesterday with Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, Karzai said he was also keen on getting more Indian teachers and doctors to come to his country.

He is expected to meet Indian Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel to discuss restarting a service to Kabul by state-owned Indian Airlines, officials said.

Karzai was accompanied by 11 Cabinet ministers, including the ministers of foreign affairs, commerce, energy, transport, information and culture, higher education, mines and industries and the national security advisor.

The Afghan president met his Indian counterpart A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Information Minister Jaipal Reddy and was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today.

The Indian external affairs minister visited Kabul last week and assured Karzai of India’s continuing assistance to Afghanistan’s rebuilding process, and offered training for its doctors and soldiers.

It was the first visit by an Indian foreign minister in 15 years.

Meanwhile, India and Pakistan agreed yesterday to cut red tape and ease barriers that hamper bilateral trade, in a move likely to strengthen a fragile peace process between the South Asian rivals.

The two countries formed two panels of experts to suggest ways to boost cooperation between their customs departments, facilitate trade and overcome non-tariff barriers, the countries said in a joint statement.

“The two sides identified issues relating to bilateral trade and deliberated upon the future roadmap in order to enhance trade and economic cooperation,” they said.

The agreement on India-Pakistan panels came at the end of talks between their commerce secretaries, a week after the neighbors agreed to launch a bus service across a disputed border in the Kashmir region.

Trade between the two countries has been hit by decades of hostility centered around their dispute over Kashmir. Direct trade is worth only about $300 million a year — a fraction of their combined $200 billion trade with the world.

Trade through third countries is, however, estimated to be 10 times higher than direct trade. Analysts say there is immense potential for more direct trade as the countries make cautious progress towards peace.

If they showed the right flexibility, trade could grow five-fold in a couple of years, Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said on Tuesday when he launched the talks.

“An improvement in the political atmosphere will move trade and commerce forward between two countries. Both should move in tandem,” Pakistani Commerce Secretary Tanseem Noorani told a news conference.

“There are several obstacles to trade between the two countries. Our objective is to remove all these barriers,” he said, adding that there was no timeframe for the panels to submit reports.

According to government statistics, India’s exports to Pakistan swelled by a record 328 percent in April-July to $167 million from $39 million in the same period a year ago.

At that pace, bilateral trade may surpass $500 million in the financial year ending March 31. India and Pakistan have gone to war three times and were on the brink of a fourth war in 2002.

India accuses Pakistan of supporting an Islamic revolt against its rule in Indian Kashmir in which more than 45,000 people have been killed since 1989. Pakistan denies the charge.

Arab News

NO. Pakistan must not support this proposal. We should also not support gas pipeline from Iran to India passing through Pakistan. We cannot facilitate Indian hegemony without resolving Kashmir issue. I am totally opposed to this Trade corridor and gas pipeline to India. Illegal and barbaric Indian occupation of Kashmir has to be resolved first. The ill fated gas pipeline will be blown by Kashmiri freedom fighters on regular basis. Pakistan needs gas and pipelines from Iran and/or Turkmenistan must end in Pakistan.

Growth in Pak-India trade to ensure win-win situation-Noorani

New Delhi Feb 23 (APP):- Underling the need to ensure parity in expansion of trade between Pakistan and India, Secretary Commerce Tasneem Noorani said that growth in exports from both sides should be reasonable and equal to have win-win situation.
The response of Indian side was positive and they assured to take care of the impediments, facing Pak exporters, visiting Secretary Commerce said in an exclusive interview with APP Special Correspondent, Naeem Chaudhry here.
Tasneem Noorani, who led Pakistan delegation at the first meetingof the Joint Study Group on Trade and Economic Cooperation, viewed that growth in trade always helped unleashing resilience to the economy and creating more job opportunities.
Observing that India is keen to overcome the bottlenecks, facing Pak exporters, he expressed that purpose of setting up JSG by the two governments was to identify the reasons as why the growth of trade between the two countries has not been orofressing.
Pakistani side, he said felt that tariffs in India were very high and owing to some non tariff barriers, imposed by India, Pakistan's exports had not been able to grow at the same pace.
In response to a query, leader of Pak delegation said Indian exports have grown faster even though their importable items are not as many. So the emphasis of JSG was to find out solutions to the issues raised at the meeting which, he added, have also been
voiced by our exporters.
To another query, Noorani said the issue of increasing the number of items, importable from India, will be discussed and examined carefully.
"Certainly, we are very conscious of protection to our nascent industry. I don't think we will be taking any action, which will be detrimental to our industry", he added.
Whether there will be incremental surge in trade or jump in trade, will depend on the exporters, he expressed adding, "Our effort is that the trade deficit between the two countries should stay at a respectable level."
"The growth in exports from both sides should be reasonable andequal as far as possible so that there is win-win situation for both parties and trade is not at the expense of one or the other party", he stressed.
The effort of the Joint Study Group dialogue is to arrive at framework or situation where we can have trade which benefits both parties, he maintained adding, two sub committees have been formed by JSG.
The Sub committee, set up on Customs facilitation, will look into the problems, the exporters face at the customs point, movement of trans-shipment and the time that it takes to go to the port.
Another committee on Non-tariff barriers is to identify such barriers, impeding growth in Pak exports to India. The sub-committees did not have much time to deliberate on the areas,
so they will go throug h in more details in the areas identified bythem during the next meeting of JSG.

APP

Babur i respect ur feelings and there is definately truth in that.But i think we must become economically strong to have a voice first.If we dont let them get the pipeline,that wont change the status on Kashmir much.Lets not forget that they can mess with the Kashmiri water as well.Wat other choices does India have for its energy sources,if u think abt it,not much .So im surprised Mushy is not using any weight at all.We all know that high cost of energy can bring a booming economy to a hault.So only time can tell,and we can only make predictions abt the outcome.