BUSINESS

CII plans another Pak visit

By BS Economy Bureau in New Delhi
January 29, 2005 13:05 IST

After meeting the Pakistani President and Prime Minister last week, the Confederation of Indian Industry will now take a bigger delegation of 25 representatives to meet Pakistani industrialists from January 31 to February 4.

The focus of the delegation will be the India-Pakistan CEO forum and non-tariff barriers between the countries.

The CII will be finalising the details of the India-Pakistan CEO forum in the meeting and will announce the names in March.

This forum, which was announced in September 2003, had not seen much development and the chamber is planning to ramp up the formation which will address the issues facing the business fraternity of the two countries.

The CII is also initiating an India-Pakistan trade specific study group to look into the non-tariff barriers. "There is a perception among Pakistani traders that India has introduced some special non-tariff barriers on exports from Pakistan to India. So we would look into the matter and present a report to both the Indian government and the Pakistani authorities," Ajay Khanna, CEO of India Brand Equity Fund, said.

Khanna, who was member of the previous delegation, said that the chamber will also push for allowing transit of goods through Wagah. "We will carry forward the issues which were discussed in the previous meeting and have a more detailed interaction with the industrialists and traders," Khanna said.

In the last meeting on January 19, the delegation had highlighted the need for a major push to bilateral economic and trade issues.

It had also underlined the need for an easy visa regime to promote tourism, start a process to promote imports from Pakistan and review the current list of positive items to add what Pakistan currently imports from elsewhere.
BS Economy Bureau in New Delhi
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