Pak to notify second tariff reduction under Safta
20 Dec 2006
Mumbai: Pakistan will announce a second tariff reduction for imports under SAFTA for all SAARC member states Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives, but not India The reduction of five per cent will be available on imports of 4,872 products.
With this Pakistan will have extended Pakistan has extend the full benefits of SAFTA to all member states except India. For India the tariff will be reduced on only 1,077 items permitted under the positive list of the list of items that can be imported.
Though Pakistan has ratified SAFTA, its bilateral trade with India continues to be governed under the positive list mechanism, which had existed before the signing of the agreement.
India has, however, objected to this stating that the members cannot implement SAFTA selectively.
While Pakistan has extended the negative lists to all other SAARC countries, it continues to trade with India with a positive list. The list of 1,077 items was recently hiked from 773 items and says that it cannot open trade with India until political issues like Kashmir are resolved.
Under SAFTA all member states have to trade with a small negative list leaving the rest of the items for open trading.
