Indo-pak cooperation: SAARC demands flexible visa regime

Intraregional trade is merely 5% of the region's total trade.

LAHORE: The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Chamber of Commerce and Industry – an apex body of chambers in the region – demanded flexible regime to augment Pak-Indo relations for remarkable improvement in economic cooperation between the two major economies, said body’s president Vikramjit Singh Sahney on the telephone from New Delhi while talking to VPSCCI, Pak chapter and veteran trade leader Iftikhar Ali Malik. He said that free movement of business community will not only help improve the business environment but also positively affect the entire region of South Asia. He said that Pakistan and India, with the support of their private sector, took historic steps to normalise bilateral trade relations. South Asia was the fastest growing region in the world but also one of the least integrated while the region’s trade with the rest of the world was growing rapidly; intraregional trade was merely 5% of its total trade.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st, 2012.