APTMA is to lead trade facilitation process with India, Group Leader Gohar Ejaz said during the visit of Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal to All Pakistan Textile Mills' Association (APTMA) on Friday. On his suggestion for multiple APTMA-specific visa facility, the Indian HC announced a special visa service for APTMA members in line with the SAARC model.
Further, he announced one year triple entry visas for APTMA covering 10 cities with one side entry through land border and return through airport, exempted from police investigation. He said the visas would be for the CEOs and Directors of APTMA members and their spouses followed by the executives of the companies. Gohar Ejaz said the APTMA would be prepared to act as one-stop shop for match-making of trade and investment projects between the entrepreneurs of the two countries in order to alleviate the menace of growing unemployment in the region.
Chairman APTMA Ahsan Bashir welcomed at the APTMA Punjab office. Chairman APTMA Punjab Shahzad Ali Khan and other office-bearers besides the Executive Committee members were also present on the occasion. According to him, the current level of trade between the two countries was hardly at $1.15 billion, which can be reached $10 billion by facilitating the entrepreneurs of the two countries.
Chairman APTMA Punjab Shahzad Ali Khan suggested in his address establishment of joint container company for increase in trade between India and Pakistan for overcoming transport infrastructure constraints in the larger interest of trade and investment between the two countries. He also proposed for the establishment of joint meeting facility at the borders until visa relaxations.
The Indian High Commissioner said the role of private sector is very crucial for trade normalisation between Pakistan and India. He said the dialogue process resumed in 2011 when India withdrew objections on trade-relating EU concessions to Pakistan. It increased the degree of trust between the two countries with reciprocity from both sides that led to serious trade talks. India allowed investment from Pakistan by lifting restrictions. He said there are 138 items importable from India through Wagha. But there are capacity issues which needed to be resolved earliest. Further, he also said that longer hour working for Customs have been introduced on both sides of the Wagha border. The sensitive list would be reduced to 400 from current 600 items. Once Pakistan phased out the negative list, India would be entitled to the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, he said.
According to the Indian High Commission, some 100 tariff lines will be in the sensitive list and trade tariff will not be more than 5 percent by April 2013. He said India is in dialogue with Pakistan in the energy sector, particularly in three areas including export of refined petroleum products to Pakistan, supply of 500MW electricity to Pakistan and project for degasified energy, ie, LNG for next five years. He said currently there is excessive trade dependence on sea and rail shipments. It is a need of the hour to increase truck shipments and opening up of more land borders. He said working on removal of NTBs including customs rationalisation, improvement in laboratories and resolution of dispute settlements was under way. He asked the APTMA leadership to bring delegation to India for meeting with counterpart organisations including Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to initiate dialogue on bilateral trade and investment besides identification of prospective investment projects.
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