Making peace: India pins hopes on trade and economy

To slash negative trade list by another 30 per cent.

ATTARI:

Trade between India and Pakistan via Attari-Wahga border is gradually growing despite several political, regional and trade hurdles. Indians, on their part, have done infrastructure developments, which are necessary to give a boost to the trade ties and are waiting for their counterparts to follow suit.

“Trade and economy is a mode of peace between the two countries. When bilateral trade increases, hurdles standing in the way of the neighbours would come down accordingly,” said Anil Bamba, Member Planning and Development, Land Port Authority India.

He was briefing a group of journalists at the integrated checkpost at the Indian border point of Attari.

Bilateral trade in the year 2012-13 stood at $2.6 billion, up 34% compared to the previous year when the volume was $1.9 billion.

Indians believe that the volume could be doubled in the next few years if trade issues, especially the negative list – the main hurdle to free trade, are addressed.

They said India had curtailed its negative list of 836 items by 30% and would slash another 30% later under the South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) agreement. However, they said, Pakistan had restricted the trade in Indian products to 137 goods only.



“A settlement of this issue could help both the countries to increase formal trade and discourage informal exchanges via third country which are estimated at around $10 billion annually,” Bamba said.

“There is a big difference between non-tariff barriers and non-tariff measures,” remarked Prem Chand of the Indian Ministry of Commerce.

Elaborating, he said a measure becomes a barrier for certain exporting country. But in case of non-tariff barriers, the focus is on standards maintained by India. So if an item is imported by India, then it should meet certain quality standards. Each country has different standards and they cannot be called non-tariff barriers.

Chand pointed out that Safta was working on this issue to make quality standards uniform for the eight member states of the regional bloc. “Once it is done, then this perception would automatically disappear. At present, 95% of non-tariff barriers pertain to standards.”

India is eager to boost trade with Pakistan, apparently in an effort to eventually win a transit route to Afghanistan. It has upgraded its integrated checkpost and is enjoying an increase in trade since the expansion in April 2012.

The new checkpost is spread over an area of 120 acres with a dedicated cargo terminal measuring 4,700 square metres, import warehouse (7,400 square metres), export warehouse (3,400 square metres) and truck parking area (55,000 square metres).

These facilities are aimed at efficient processing of cargo. The checkpost has another 99,000 square metres available for future expansion.

India has a 15,000km international border with 132 notified land customs stations. The border between Pakistan and India has 10 customs stations, of which the integrated checkpost at Attari is prominent.

At present, 30% of trade between the two countries takes place via the Attari-Wahga checkpost. According to the Indian customs, since the integrated checkpost started operating, the trade has increased up to 88%.

Sixty per cent of exports from India to Pakistan comprise vegetables, whereas major exports from Pakistan include gypsum, cement, chemicals, etc.

The number of trucks that brought cargo from both sides increased 47% to 74,847 in fiscal year 2012-13 compared with 50,984 trucks in 2011-12.

Indians give credit to the expansion of the integrated checkpost and some cooperation between the Indian and Pakistani customs over documentation of trucks and products, which, they say, needs to be further improved.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2013.

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