ISLAMABAD, Nov 20: Pakistan and Bangladesh have agreed to finalize the free trade agreement (FTA) by January 2004 to increase the current volume of trade between the two countries.

Official sources told Dawn on Thursday that the officials of the two countries would finalize the draft agreement, rules of origin and negative lists before the FTA was signed.

Pakistan is likely to place around 400-500 items in the negative list with Bangladesh under the proposed treaty, the officials said adding that these items would be finalized following seeking the comments of the relevant stakeholders.

With these, the list would be finally approved by the federal cabinet before it was considered for negotiations.

Similarly, the official said Bangladesh would work out a negative list with the consent of their relevant stakeholders. The final list of items to be placed under the negative list would be exchanged in January 2004 by both countries.