Pak assures IMF of granting India 'most favoured nation' status

Pakistan has reportedly assured the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to grant neighbouring India 'most favoured nation' (MFN) status as part of its overall trade policy.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan is moving forward with eliminating the negative list on trade with India and extending most favoured nation status to it and shifting to 'sensitive list' under SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Arrangement) regime to facilitate increased regional trade.

The PPP government had announced that India would be granted MFN status last year by allowing 5,000 items to be traded between the two nations, but it was stalled as India did not move to remove non-tariff barriers on Pakistani products and some industrialists opposed the move, Dawn reports.

Dar said that the government's strategy would also be to take full advantage of trade preferences available from the European Union where Pakistan had autonomous trade preferences in 75 items.

The minister said that trade policy reforms would ensure consumer welfare and stimulate growth via increased competition.

The report added Dar saying that simplifying tariff rates, eliminating the statutory regulatory orders (SROs) that establish special rates and non-trade barriers in some 4,000 product areas and normalising trade relations should deliver the much needed competitive environment.