- Tuesday, November 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Indian government informed the parliament on Thursday (28) that there has been little progress on the issue of resuming trade ties with the neighbouring country of Pakistan over the last three years.
V Muraleedharan, the minister of state for external affairs, said in a written response to a query in the Rajya Sabha or Upper House of the parliament, “In August 2019, Pakistan announced the suspension of bilateral trade with India. Pakistan partially relaxed its ban on trade with India in September 2019 by permitting trade in certain pharmaceutical products.”
“There has not been any progress regarding resumption of trade with Pakistan since then,” he added.
Islamabad suspended trade ties with New Delhi on August 7, 2019, days after the latter abrogated Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that gave the former state of Jammu and Kashmir special status.
As a result of the move, trade between the two countries fell to $329.26 million (£269.3 million) in 2021 fiscal from $2.56 billion (£2.1 billion) in 2019 fiscal, Moneycontrol reported.
While India’s exports to Pakistan amounted to $2.07 billion (£1.7 billion) in FY19 – 0.63 per cent of all its exports – imports stood at $494.87 million (£408.5 million).
In FY22, India exported goods worth $513.82 million (£424.1 million) to Pakistan which is just 0.12 per cent of all its exports. It imported, on the other hand, merchandise worth only $2.54 million (£2 million).
As per data on the Indian commerce ministry’s website, India’s exports to Pakistan in the first two months of FY23 equalled to $142.14 million (£117.3 million). The biggest item of the exports was ‘sugar and sugar confectionery’, which accounted for $85.84 million (£70.8 million) or 60 percent of all exports to Pakistan.
