India's agri export to Pak soars ahead of trade pact

Grows 97% in value, 198% in quantity terms in a year

As Pakistan plans to expand trade ties with India, agriculture exports from India to that country have more than doubled in the past year, on higher demand for commodities such as pulses and vegetables.

Export of agriculture products from India has been a major concern for the farm lobby in Pakistan, which fears abolishing trade barriers with India would hurt domestic farmers.

According to Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority data, India’s agriculture export to Pakistan stood at $146 million between April and October 2013, nearly 97 per cent higher than the export in the same period last year. In terms of quantity too, exports increased threefold or nearly 198 per cent.

The jump in exports can be attributed to a stellar rise in vegetable exports (520 per cent in dollar and 477 per cent in value terms), and considerable rise in export of pulses (56 per cent in dollar terms and 156 per cent in quantity) and dairy products (170 per cent in value and 147 per cent in quantity terms).

This apart, this year, India also exported onions worth $17 million (73,140 million tonnes) till October last year, against $8.90 million (38,823 million tonnes) for the whole of 2012-13. While India granted most favoured nation status to Pakistan in 1996, it recently indicated further opening up of its market on a reciprocal basis.

Recently, the two countries also agreed to establish reciprocal non-discriminatory market access (NDMA) by February-end. At present, Pakistan maintains a negative list of nearly 1,209 items, which will be abolished under the NDMA.

Despite efforts to boost trade relations, border skirmishes have often played a spoilsport. For example, recently, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir authorities  suspended both trade and travel on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route after the arrest of a Pakistani driver on the Indian side.  

In 2012-13, India’s total trade with Pakistan stood at nearly $2,606 million — a growth of nearly 34 per cent over the previous year. Of this, the share of India’s export to Pakistan was $2,064 million, while import was $541 million.

India imports fruits, onions and shrimps, among other things, from Pakistan.