The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will be organising the first-ever Indo-Pak trade promotion fair from September 14 to 17, 2002 at the Expo centre at Karachi. Pakistani chambers and a CII delegation to Pakistan recently discussed it and the proposal has been cleared in-principle by Tariq Ikram, minister of state for commerce and chairman, Export Promotion Bureau, Government of Pakistan, Jagdish Khattar, leader of the Indian delegation told reporters here today.
Around 500 Pakistani businessmen echoed enhanced and free trade with India in the WTO regime, since costs in many industry sectors would come down 30-40 per cent in Pakistan if imports from India were promoted. At present, trade between India and Pakistan was around $220-250 million, while the illegal trade done primarily through Singapore and Dubai, was as high as $3 billion.
Khattar said the Pakistani businessmen wanted Indian partnership in textile machinery, engineering products, the services industry, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.