Biz-Connect to bridge India, Pakistan disconnect

Asked for an update on India-Pakistan trade ties at a business seminar on Friday, Naeem Anwar, Minister, Trade, at the Pakistan High Commission, responded with a joke: "A student was asked, 'If your father spends five rupees a day in how many days will he spend 45 rupees?' When he failed to answer, his teacher was surprised. 'You don't know any mathematics,' the teacher shouted. 'You don't know my father,' the student replied."

The need to boost cross-border trade was obvious, Anwar explained, but seemingly straightforward processes were invariably scuttled by imponderables.

Three weeks after the Indian government called off the India-Pakistan dialogue, citing the Pakistani envoy's meeting with Hurriyat leaders, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) and its Pakistani counterpart, FPCCI, organised a Biz-Connect joint session of Indian and Pakistani businessmen, in an effort to rejuvenate flagging cross-border ties.

"Trade talks cannot be seen in isolation, but are part and parcel of the process of political dialogue," Anwar said. "We need to restart the dialogue process."

Last year, Indo-Pak trade stood at $2.9 billion, far short of the $10-billion a year target estimated by trade bodies like Ficci and Confederation of Indian Industry.

"We would love to buy from India," said Syed Manazir Ali Nasir, chairman of Swat Ceramics. "But the tariff and non-tariff obstacles are too many."

In 1947, Nasir's father shut down the Western Medical Store at Urdu Bazaar in New Delhi and migrated to Karachi.

"My father was a pioneer of Sino-Pak ties," Nasir said. "He travelled to China in 1953 and since then, we have imported all our machinery from China."

Two years ago, he decided to import a filtration machine from a Pune-based company.

"We made the payment, but then the delivery stalled as they had to route the machine via Dubai," he said. "We then waited two years for an Indian engineer to get a visa to come and install the machine." The visa never came, so Nasir got Chinese engineers to instal the India-made machine.

FPCCI's Senior Vice-President Shaukat Ahmed's father moved to Pakistan from Calcutta's Choona Galli in 1947.

"We set up our Pakistan business by importing leather from India via informal channels. Now, we have a spinning mill and do a lot of business with Reliance Group," he explained. "But there are still no established banking channels. It is very difficult to remit money between the two countries."

Normalised trade relations could also help multi-national corporations set up regional value chains. "We have factories in Indian and Pakistani Punjab that are only 100 km apart," said Syed Yawar Ali, Chairman of Nestle Pakistan. "Ideally we could merge operations to serve the region. It's up to business to make governments talk to each other."

Arvind Mehta, joint secretary at the Indian ministry of commerce and industry, said: "India and Pakistan can build world-class value chains in textiles, auto-components and gemstones."

The commerce ministry, Mehta said, was considering a proposal to allow Indian and Pakistani businessmen to meet at the Wagah border and exchange samples in neutral territory without travel visas. "The key is to keep the dialogue going," he said.

As the meeting dissembled for lunch, both sides vowed to keep trade ties alive. "You keep pushing your government," said an Indian delegate, "and we'll push ours."