NEW DELHI: In a setback to prospects of restarting trade via Wagah, the Pakistan Cabinet has put off the proposal to import sugar and cotton from India. The proposal was cleared a day earlier by the Pakistan’s Economic Coordination Committee (ECC).
On Wednesday, Pakistan appeared to be on course to reversing two official notifications of August 10, 2019, that banned all trade with India in protest against the change in status of J&K. But there might have been an internal pushback in Islamabad because at least one import proposal for raw cotton and yarn must have been cleared by Pakistan PM Imran Khan as he is also the Minister of Commerce and Textile.
Newly appointed Pakistan Finance Minister Hammad Azhar had framed the ECC’s approval for the import of cotton and sugar in terms of economic necessity. Prices of sugar in India were the lowest in the world while cotton will help the textile sector tide over raw material shortage.
The tables were turned on Thursday with Pakistan’s Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari tweeting that the Cabinet has not approved the EEC’s decision.
“Today cabinet stated clearly NO trade with India,” she tweeted, while stating that Imran Khan had made it clear that “there can be no normalisation of relations with India until they reverse their illegal actions” regarding occupied Kashmir taken on August 5, 2019.
In case Pakistan had cancelled the two notifications, the path would have cleared for India reversing the 200 per cent duty imposed on Pakistani trade.