From the NY Times (April 16, 2012)
(The picture not included)
Popular Support for Growing Trade Ties Between India and Pakistan
By HARI KUMAR
A Pakistan exhibitor (L) speaks with an Indian Sikh visitor at the
Lifestyle Pakistan Exhibition in New Delhi April 12, 2012.
The loosening of trade barriers between India and Pakistan was warmly
greeted in Delhi and at the border town of Attari in recent days.
At the inauguration this Friday of the a new “Integrated Check Post,” a
48-hectare, or 118-acre, $30 million project, leaders of both countries
sat on a huge dais in the Indian town of Attari in Amritsar district
and emphasized the shared fate of both countries, and their need for
lasting peace for prosperity.
“Long live India and long live Pakistan,” the chief minister of Punjab
State in Pakistan, Shahbaz Sharif, shouted. A crowd hundreds strong
echoed him with shouts of “Long live, long live.”
At the Pakistan “Lifestyle” fair in New Delhi over the weekend, massive
crowds of upper-middle-class women thronged Pakistani clothing booths,
jostling amid mounds of brightly patterned, ornately embroidered
fabric. Thousands attended the fair, which also had furniture, sweets
and food.
Bilateral trade between the two countries was only $300 million in
2004, but has increased ninefold since then to $2.7 billion in 2011,
and is expected to grow further. A study by The Associated Chambers of
Commerce and Industry of India, a business trade group, calculated
that bilateral trade between India and Pakistan may increase to $8
billion a year in next two years. Informal trade between India and
Pakistan, which takes place via Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore, is
estimated at $5 billion to $6 billion, the report said.
Recent and upcoming weeks have yielded a flurry of increased
India-Pakistan engagement, with ministers and bureaucrats exchanging
visits, business delegations meeting, lifestyle products being
exhibited in both the countries, visa regimes being liberalized and
more trade facilitation centers under construction. India and Pakistan
are developing an easier visa process for traders and business people,
the elderly and children and spouses who have family in the opposing
country.
While inaugurating the facility Friday, P. Chidambaram, India’s home
minister, said, “Trade is a great driving force. Trade unites people.
All trade barriers in between India and Pakistan should be dismantled.”
Terrorism and Kashmir, two issues that have long divided the countries,
were not to be discussed. “Today is a happy occasion and we are talking
about agreements and not disagreements,” Mr. Chidambaram replied in
response to a question about Hafeez Saeed, a Pakistani national who is
alleged to be the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which at
least 163 people died. The U.S. government recently declared a $10
million reward for information leading to his arrest.
“We can sit across the table and discuss anything under the sun”
Makhdoom Amin Fahim, the commerce minister of Pakistan, said Friday.
Pakistan can import 137 items through the land route, but in the future
this list may include the 6,000 items that can be traded through a sea
route now. Pakistan has also expressed a willingness to give India
transit facilities for trade with Afghanistan and Iran in energy and
infrastructure products.
_______________________________________________
assam mailing list
[email protected]
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
