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July 4, 2001
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Money > Business Headlines > Report July 4, 2001 |
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Pak finance, commerce ministers may accompany MusharrafSunanda Sanganeria & Aditi Phadnis Although the probability is low, hopes are high. A trade delegation is doubtful, but the finance and commerce ministers of Pakistan may be part of the team led by President Pervez Musharraf when he comes to India on July 14. What they will discuss is a moot question. The Pakistan finance minister Shaukat Aziz told NDTV in an interview Tuesday that it would always be "Kashmir first and trade later". Not that there is much to talk about. Although Pakistan is a member of the WTO, it denies MFN treatment to India. Until this glitch is sorted out and trade is opened up in over 600 commodities, discussion among businessmen is pointless. It isn't as if Indian goods are not reaching Pakistan. However, the opposition to giving India MFN status persists in the Pakistani ruling class. Vested interests are operating here. Currently, much of the Indo-Pakistan trade goes on through underground illegal channels, via Dubai. Indian businessmen sell tyres, for instance, to Pakistani businessmen in Dubai who then change the made-in-India labels and resell the same tyres at a premium in Pakistan. The tyres are deemed to be an export item from Dubai. Several ruling class families are engaged in this business. Obviously, if trade is opened up, this channel will be busted. The Jamaat-e-Islami keeps issuing statements that anyone who talks of MFN status to India is a traitor to the Pakistani cause, because it is egged on to do so by this lobby. Other items which go through the Dubai route are tea and soyabean. Pakistan is one of the world's largest consumer of tea, second only to the UK. Indian and Pakistani tea traders tried in January this year but could not make any headway on talks regarding import. Politics was the hitch. Ministry officials on both sides stayed away from the meeting and it never got official sanction. So, Indian tea traders have resorted to utilising the Dubai route to send tea to Pakistan. Soyabean, another important ingredient for the manufacture of vegetable oil, is also imported in Pakistan through Dubai. Sugar was one of the few commodities traded directly with Pakistan. However, amidst protests from local traders and parties, Pakistan imposed a ban on imports of the commodity from India on March this year. The ban is only on Indian sugar. Another commodity that is traded freely but illegally is salt -- no one knows how much. Pakistani salt is highly prized in India and a ritual among salt smugglers on both sides is to seal the smuggling pact by making each other taste a pinch of salt. This is supposedly insurance against 'namakharami' (disloyalty)! Powered by YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:
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