ISLAMABAD, Oct 13: Pakistan and India are likely to exchange additional lists of around 400 items for concessional duties under South Asia Preferential Trade Arrangement (Sapta) to enhance the volume of bilateral trade.

Official sources told Dawn on Monday that the lists would be exchanged during the Sapta meeting scheduled for October 18 in Khatmandu.

A high-level official delegation has left for the Nepalese capital on Sunday to negotiate the expected finalization of draft South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) treaty allowing free trade among member countries.

The officials would deliberate at length on the proposed treaty in the committee of experts’ meeting scheduled for October 14-17.

According to officials, the decision to exchange lists of items taken following the request from the Saarc secretariat to the governments of the two countries as Indian delegation had refused to exchange the list during the Sapta meeting held in November last.

The officials said under Sapta India had offered to give concession to Pakistan on 250 plus items, while Islamabad would give concession on 150 plus items during the proposed meeting.

India has also shown its willingness to increase the list of items to more than 1000 for consideration of concessional duties if Pakistan reciprocated, the official said and added it would not be possible for Pakistan to reciprocate in the same way as the trade was already heavily tilted in favour of India. Further, India has a bigger economy as compared to that of Pakistan.

According to statistics available with Dawn, under Sapta, Pakistan has so far given concession to around 240 items at the sixth digit level (the ranking of this category of items on the list containing all categories of items) to India, while Islamabad received concession on around 370 items at the same level from New Delhi.

There is still room for giving duty concession to India under Sapta on 440 more items at sixth digit level. Currently, there are only 686 items at sixth digit level on the positive list for trading with India.

Of these only 240 items at sixth digit level are allowed for duty concession to India under Sapta.

Under Sapta, Pakistan has so far given preferences in tariff on more than 763 items to all Saarc-member countries, while Islamabad received preferences on around 788 items from these countries.

Regarding Safta, the officials said that during the four-day meeting of experts of the Saarc-member countries, they would negotiate the tariff reduction formula on items with a time limit.

They would also discuss the maximum reduction on items by member countries along with the elimination of non-tariff barriers among the member countries.

With possible consensus on these issues among others, the final draft would be approved during the forthcoming high level Saarc member countries meeting expected to be held in Pakistan in January 2004, the officials added.

The member countries have already agreed in principle to finalize the agreement latest by 2005 with the aim to promote regional trade in South Asia.