Access to the US market is a key tool in Pakistan's drive against extremism, Commerce and Trade Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan said on Tuesday following talks with US officials on trade initiatives. Humayun Akhtar Khan said US authorities should take a strategic view of its economic ties with ally Pakistan to attain shared anti-terrorism goals.
"Economically as well as strategically, to effectively address in a long-term manner the problem of extremism in that region it is important to enhance trade," he told Reuters.
Foremost in Khan's talks with US Trade Representative Susan Schwab and other officials in Washington was promoting so-called "reconstruction opportunity zones" under a plan agreed by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and US President George W. Bush in Islamabad in March 2006.
The plan would allow duty-free access to goods made in areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, including tribal areas of Pakistan where US intelligence reports say the militant groups Taliban and al Qaeda have reconstituted themselves.
"Even trade should be strategically viewed because it addresses the main problem we are trying to face, which is curbing extremism," Khan said. Khan said the Musharraf government hopes to finish nearly three-year-old talks on a bilateral investment treaty with the United States. This would add to foreign investment in the country, which drew $8.4 billion last year on the back of deregulation and fast growth. Stimulating investment and trade would also help Islamabad and Kabul tackle the problem of increasing opium poppy production in Afghanistan - a trade that funds insurgents.
"When you have young people out of jobs and economically deprived, then certainly, whether they go towards terrorism or they go towards poppy growing, such economic measures are a big help," Khan said.