New Delhi: Pakistan has, in principle, agreed to give India Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, a basic international trading procedure that has been languishing on the margins for the last two decades, but which will now allow both countries to conduct normal trade with each other.
The trade concession is likely to see the day when Pakistan commerce minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim comes to Delhi for talks with his Indian counterpart Anand Sharma in September. A letter from Sharma inviting Fahim to Delhi was carried by India's high commissioner to Pakistan, Sharad Sabharwal, when he returned to Islamabad last week after the conclusion of the foreign minister-level talks between SM Krishna and Hina Rabbani Khar.
Perhaps it was the stardust that Khar threw in the eyes of the media during her visit to Delhi, which caused both sides to miss the seminal reference to MFN status hidden deep inside the joint statement, issued at the conclusion of the bilateral conversation.
The Indian and Pakistani media seemed so overcome by the designer memorabilia adorning Khar -- Roberto Cavalli sunshades, Birkin bag and South Sea/Mikimoto pearls -- that it failed to comprehend the fundamental nature of the shift that seems to be taking inside Pakistan today.
Clause number 12 of the joint statement, then, refers to both ministers agreeing that an increase in trade and economic engagement between the two countries would be mutually beneficial.
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