Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry's (MCCI) sub-committee on Engineering's convenor Iqbal Hassan pointed out the trade balance heavily tilted in favour of India due to whole array of regulatory duties and other levies on imports from Pakistan besides various rebates and incentives to Indian exporters from state and central governments.
To maintain level playing field, a Non-Discriminatory Market Access (NDMA) from India to Pakistan is more vital before Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India, he added.
He said in a press statement that NDMA from India before asking MFN from Pakistan as without level playing field there could be no trade liberalisation between the two neighbouring countries. Iqbal Hassan expressed his appreciation for appointing a high powered committee chaired by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and attended by the Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan and other federal secretaries wherein they have expressed realisation of the fact that in order for the NDMA process to progress further, India should give tangible concessions on items of exports so as to provide a level playing field in, which Pakistan and India both have an equal chance to increase their exports to each other. He lauded the efforts of the government for having taken all the stakeholders on board before formulating the suggestions. He warned that our industry would be shut if we failed to maintain balance in trade with India.