New Delhi, March 19
New Delhi is hopeful that the Pakistan Cabinet will decide in favour of granting the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India when it meets in Islamabad on Friday. “We have been hearing that the Pakistan Cabinet will finally accord the MFN status to India...let’s hope it happens now...it’s already too late,” an official source said.

It is, however, learnt that instead of the MFN status, Pakistan could announce Non-Discriminatory Market Access (NDMA) for India. The new term will grant India the same benefits as envisaged under the MFN. Islamabad has coined the new term-NDMA — because of the controversy in Pakistan over according the MFN status to India. The term MFN translates as ‘sabse pasandida mulk’ in Urdu.

Asked if India too would have to give NDMA to Pakistan, the source said New Delhi would not have to do any such thing since it had already accorded the MFN status to Pakistan way back in 1996. “We will follow the roadmap that was announced in the joint statement issued by the two sides after the talks between the Commerce Secretaries in September 2012,” he said.

The joint statement had stated that before the end of 2017, the two countries would have no more than 100 (six digit) tariff lines in their respective SAFTA sensitive lists. Before the end of 2020, except for this small number of tariff lines under respective SAFTA sensitive lists, the peak tariff rate for all other tariff lines would not be more than five per cent.

The granting of MFN status to India was part of the bilateral composite dialogue, which was suspended by New Delhi following the beheading of Indian soldiers in January last year. There was speculation last month also that Pakistan would announce NDMA for India to coincide with Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma’s visit to Lahore for an exhibition of Indian products. However, Islamabad changed its mind at the last minute, leading to the cancellation of the visit by the Indian minister.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that India has agreed to Pakistan’s demand for excluding 160 items, essentially textile products, from the sensitive list on an immediate basis once Islamabad announces NDMA.