Indian Prime Minister to roll out eco-package to Pakistan as India starts removing mines
Syndicated Correspondence
Oct. 23, 2005

Mines were being removed along Uri, Poonch and Tangdhar sectors where three quake relief camps are set up.

Only Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can think of trashing security risks and conceptualise cross-border investments with Pakistan, in which Pakisanis invest in India, start joint ventures and Indians do likewise in Pakistan. The only restriction that may remain as applicable to other foreigners also is a ban on buying any land in India. Giving the Indian market's access to the Pakistani banks recently and Pakistan reciprocating by allowing the Indian banks to do business in its territory is only the beginning of the borders becoming porous for economic relationship after half-a-century of distrust and animosity, sources in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said. Dr Manmohan Singh has taken the initiative of giving a call for a "proactive" policy on promotion of economic relations with Pakistan which does not stop just with the bilateral trade but goes on to promote "people-to-people bilateral deals" including setting up of factories in each other's territories. The PMO under the leadership of the Prime Minister's Principal TKA Nair is now busy coordinating with various ministries to roll out an economic package to Islamabad that will include foreign direct investments (FDIs) for the first time by the Pakistani companies in the Indian industries. FDI is something that China has been pressing for many years to enter the Indian markets but refused because of the "security concerns." Similar concerns are regularly voiced by the security and intelligence agencies against the Pakistanis establishing trade and factories in India. The Prime Minister has, however, set aside these concerns so far as Pakistan goes, asserting that India will prosper by doing more business instead of distrust with this neighbour. The package that will soon go to Islamabad for a bilateral agreement aims to provide more market access to Pakistan by way of economic cooperation in capital market and other areas, simpler visa procedures, more air links, IT (information technology) cooperation, beefed up border trade infrastructures on both road and sea routes, and mutual recognition agreements to facilitate movement of goods. The proposed agreement between the two countries will facilitate movement of goods not only between them but even the third-country shipments transiting through each other's territory like India exporting goods to the Russian block, Afghanistan and other countries via Pakistan, importing gas from Iran and other countries via Pakistan and Pakistan transporting its goods from the Mumbai and other Indian ports. Sources here say except for the mindset of suspicion, Islamabad would love to lap up the package India is putting forward as it will help it in a big way in improving balance of trade with India. Today, Pakistan imports a lot from India while its exports to India are negligible, creating the huge imbalance that needs to be corrected. The move to boost the bilateral trade between the two neighbours is not likely to be bogged down this time so far as Delhi is concerned since it is Dr Manmohan Singh who has called for a "change of mindset" in which India takes the initiative to encourage the neighbouring countries do more business with it. This initiative of Dr Manmohan Singh will also compel Islamabad to quietly grant the "Most Favoured Nation" (MFN) status to India as mandated under the WTO accord but refused all these years while India has unilaterally already granted that status to Pakistan. The status binds the neighbours to prefer trade of any item among themselves before looking for imports from other countries.

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