ISLAMABAD, Sept 4- More than half of Pakistan’s population is in favour of establishing trade ties with New Delhi, Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.
A Gilani Research Foundation survey conducted by Gallup Pakistan found 63 percent of Pakistanis believe their country should trade with India while 33 percent said no with the remaining four percent having no opinion.
A similar poll in June 2012 showed 67 percent of Pakistanis were in favour of having close trade ties with India.
Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said recently that granting of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India was not on the table “for the time being”.
The remarks came within days of a report released by World Bank that said Pakistan would benefit from granting MFN-status to India.
Last year, Pakistan moved from a positive list regime to a negative list regime for trade with India.
Islamabad was to have eliminated the negative list regime in December and granted MFN-status to India but missed the Dec 31 deadline to make the change.
The previous government had put on hold the move to accord MFN-status to India following opposition from industries and hardline groups like Jamaat-ud-Dawah.
India granted MFN-status to Pakistan in 1996.
Bilateral trade stood at US$2.35 billion in 2012-13 compared to US$1.93 billion in the earlier fiscal.
– BERNAMA
