December 3, 2002	Tuesday	Ramazan 27,1423

ISLAMABAD, Dec 2: Pakistan, Iran are expected to discuss a number of measures to enhance trade during the coming 13th session of Joint Economic Commission scheduled to be held in the mid of this month.

In this regard, an inter-ministerial meeting on Monday finalized the measures to be discussed at the meeting, said an official.

Elaborating the agenda of the meeting, the official said that during the proposed meeting the officials of both the countries would discuss at length measures to increase the bilateral trade and review of the existing trade between the two countries.

The meeting would also chalk out measures for extending cooperation in the field of industry, science and technology and information technology, said the official.

Pakistan and Iran had signed avoidance of double taxation treaty. The treaty was expected to be finalized in the meeting, said the official.

The other issues to be discussed included the cooperation in the field of customs for exchanging expertise to facilitate the trade and remove the unnecessary bottlenecks causing delay in shipment of trade between the two countries.

The officials of the two countries would also discuss the menace of smuggling mostly of petroleum products from Iran, said the official.

Official figures made available to Dawn showed that the trade deficit with Iran declined to $129.03 million during the financial year 2001-02 from $350.58 million over the corresponding year of 2000-01, showing a decline of 171 per cent.

Further break up showed that Pakistan export to Iran during the year 2001-02 stood at $29.188 million against $23.867 million over the corresponding year, showing an increase of 22.29 per cent.

And Iran export to Pakistan declined by 57.7 per cent to $158.219 million during the year 2001-02 against $350.581 million over the last year. Similarly, Iran total share in Pakistan’s imports was 4 per cent during the year 2000-01.