Grant of NDMA to India will help Pak more: SAARC Chamber

SAARC believes there is potential to increase bilateral trade to $10 bn from current level of $2.7 bn

Normalising trade relations with India and granting it non-discriminatory market access (NDMA) will help Pakistan more, SAARC Chamber of Commerce and industry said today.

The chamber's President Vikramjit Singh Sahney also said that opening up of Wagah-Attari border 24x7 as well as setting up of trade facilitation centre would further enhance trade relations between India and Pakistan.

"These measures would help Pakistan more which will be able to substitute its expensive imports from other countries thus saving considerable foreign exchange," Sahney said in a statement.

He said there is a potential to increase bilateral trade to $10 billion, from the current level of $2.7 billion.

As regards visas, he asked all the members of SAARC to issue 500 SAARC visa exemption stickers to bonafide businessmen of each member country against the current 200 with one year validity.

The members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

Pakistan has recently said that all stakeholders had been taken into confidence on the need for better bilateral trade relations with India.

Imports from India "should substitute our import from other countries which will save valuable foreign exchange", Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had said few days back.

Pakistan has already missed its own deadline of December 2012 for giving India Most Favoured Nation-status.