India, Pakistan commerce secretaries to meet Wednesday

New Delhi: After a gap of more than a year, Commerce Secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet on Tuesday to discuss trade-related issues and set the agenda for the ministerial meeting later this week.

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“Besides taking stock of trade relations, Commerce Secretary SR Rao and his Pakistani counterpart Qasim M Niyaz are also expected to discuss issues like trade of power and petroleum products,” a senior official said.

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and Pakistan’s State Minister for Commerce and Textile Khurram Dastagir Khan will meet on 18 January.

Khan is arriving in New Delhi to attend the SAARC Business Leaders Conclave.

The trade liberalisation process between the two nations was hit after the beheading of an Indian soldier in January last year.

Besides, Pakistan missing the deadline for granting the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India is also not going down well with Indian authorities.

Pakistan was to grant the status in December 2012 by eliminating the negative list of 1,209 items.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs has said that the meeting of the Commerce Ministers of the two countries could not be construed as resumption of dialogue process.

The Commerce Secretaries of India and Pakistan met last time in September, 2012. During that meeting, both the sides had emphasised on the need to increase trade traffic through the Railways.

They had also agreed to encourage two-way investment and enhance investor confidence on both sides. Besides, both had emphasised on the need to eliminate non-trade barriers and enhance air connectivity between the two nations.

The bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $2.60 billion in 2012-13.

PTI