We have pointed out earlier that MFN status simply means not discriminating against goods and services originating in India. ILLUSTRATION: TALHA AHMED KHAN
So long as the trade barriers between Pakistan and India are removed, this newspaper is not concerned with what the government chooses to call such normalisation. Indeed, we are glad that the Nawaz Administration has decided to rename the unfortunately phrased Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) status to Non-Discriminatory Market Access (NDMA) and grant the necessary easing of trade restrictions anyway. It is a creative solution to a prickly, and somewhat ludicrous, political problem with regard to liberalised trade ties with India.
We have pointed out earlier that MFN status simply means not discriminating against goods and services originating in India, and that granting this status is a treaty obligation for Pakistan under its accession to the World Trade Organisation. It seems that somebody in the commerce ministry belatedly got the brilliant idea of calling it what it is, not what trade negotiators in Uruguay decided to name it two decades ago. However, while we are glad the government appears committed to moving the process ahead, we do believe it needs to modify its approach in order to ensure that trade liberalisation goes ahead without a problem. While it is true that the Cabinet has the prerogative to decide on trade policy, since many of the barriers are administrative in nature, we believe that a more appropriate venue for making trade policy decisions is parliament. Not only would the debate take place in a more open platform, relatively free from undue influence exerted by lobbying groups, but it would also serve to ensure that better trade ties with India become a policy on which we achieve a national consensus.
In addition, we also believe trade policy should be transferred to parliament and matters relating to taxation should only be decided upon by elected representatives. By renaming MFN, the government has bet that openness and honesty with the people of Pakistan might work. It should try it on other matters of policy as well.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 5th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (6)
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it appears Pakistan Establishment has vested interest in Traders in Dubai and Singapore exporting Indian goods to Pakistan. Interestingly Pakistan Import of indian goods from Dubai and Singapore is more than twice as compared to import directly from India. who cares if the consumer in Pakistan pays for transportation of goods from India to Dubai, Dubai to Pakistan and profits made by traders in Dubai.
The name was not the main problem, intent was.
I have lost track of the number of times such announcements have been made on ET and the subsequent analysis it resulted in. If a kid was born in 1996 when India gave Pakistan MFN, that kid would now be an adult 18 years later.
My feeling is that all the chit-chat right now is to once again seek additional sops from a new government in India and that Pakistan will do nothing. Indians have moved on and rightly so.
while broadly agreeing with the spirit of the editorial. I have some reservations. It seems that the Pakistan government's position on trade with India is akin to its position on talks with the Taliban. It seems unsure about how to proceed or whether to proceed at all. See their reasons for not working on the IP pipeline. Pakistani government just wants to mouth its intentions without meaning them.
"A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet"
Parliament is a legislative body. It is the task of the executive to govern which includes designing and implementing policies. In a parliamentary democracy, the executive consists of the PM, his cabinet and the bureacracy of their various ministries.
It is surprising that even an editorial writer in a leading daily is so unaware about the basic nature of the 3 institutions which are co-equal i.e. legislature, judiciary and execuive. Oh and by the way in most democracies, the army is not a 4th institution. It is part of the executive reporting up through the defense ministry.
The notion that Parliament is spreme or that it is appropriate place to formlate policies is just wrong. Unless and until a policy requires changing the exising law or implementing a new law - the parliament has no role in policy formulation.