Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma will visit Pakistan next month for a trade show to be held in Lahore as the two sides take steps to normalise trade relations.
"The Indian Commerce Minister is visiting Pakistan. The dates are likely to be 16, 17, 18 February to coincide with the India Show in Lahore, which is a trade fair," Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told a weekly news briefing today.
Earlier this month, Sharma held talks with his Pakistani counterpart Khurram Dastgir Khan on the sidelines of a SAARC business meeting in New Delhi.
Khan, a top leader of the ruling PML-N, recently announced that Pakistan has agreed to give Non-Discriminatory Market Access (NDMA) to India from next month.
NDMA has been suggested as a new name for the Most Favoured Nation regime in an attempt to reduce political fallout in Pakistan. Khan said this can happen only if India gives market access to certain products identified by Pakistan.
Pakistan has sought market access from India for 250-300 products, which included in the sensitive list of the South Asia Free Trade Area, at lowered duties.
In January last year, Pakistan missed a deadline for giving MFN-status to India largely due to pressure from trade lobbies and right wing and extremist organisations ahead of the country's general election.
Replying to a question during the briefing, Aslam said Pakistan had not received any information regarding a visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in March.
