US envoy favours India-Pakistan trade enhancement

Amritsar, May 20
US Ambassador to India Richard R. Verma on Wednesday favoured enhancement of trade between India and Pakistan, and said he would certainly do whatever was possible to push both the governments to resolve the issues at the earliest.

"There is indeed immense potential to save huge transportation costs and time if more and more trade is done through land route via the Attari-Wagah border," he said.

He was here in the Punjab border town to listen to Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) concerns and possible solutions to enhance trade between India and Pakistan through the land route.

A delegation of CII's Amritsar zonal council, led by its vice chairman Pradeep Sehgal, called on the US ambassador during an interaction organised by the customs commissioner at the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at the Attari border near here.

"Though the economic destinies of India and Pakistan are interlinked, our bilateral trade is below $3 billion, which has the potential to touch $10 billion in the next few years," Sehgal said.

"Our economies are complementary and it's highly imperative that Pakistan at least declare the negative list of a few important items and thus allow import of the rest of items from India," he added.

Sehgal said the biggest hurdle was that though India has granted Pakistan the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, Pakistan has only created a positive list of importable goods from India.

"If it intends to protect particular industries, it should rather create a 'negative list' of those items and allow export of rest of items from India to Pakistan," he said.

Earlier, interacting with scholars and faculty of Guru Nanak Dev University here, Ambassador Verma said "if India and the US work together, it will not only benefit both the nations but will also deliver significantly for rest of the world".

During his visit under the US Embassy's Outreach Programme, he shared his diplomatic experiences with the staff of the university.

He also visited historic Khalsa College and got glimpses of the state's rich history and culture.

Amritsar: US Ambassador to India Richard Verma during his visit to Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, on May 20, 2015. (Photo: IANS)