ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: A five-member delegation left for India on Monday for first Indo-Pakistan Joint Study Group on Trade and Economic meeting that begins in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The delegation headed by federal Commerce secretary Mr Tasneem Noorani includes Mr Zaheer additional secretary Industries, Mr Zafar Mughal member CBR, Mr Shahid Bashir, director-general Foreign Trade and Mr Jalil Abbas Jilani, director general South Asia Division, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Significantly, this will be the first official-level dialogue between Pakistan and India after Indian External Affairs minister Mr Natwar Singh's visit to Pakistan last week.

The Joint Study Group at the level of the Commerce Secretaries will take up important trade-related issues and review findings of a joint study conducted recently on trade matters by Pakistani and Indian specialists.

The primary focus of the first round of talks would be on the tariff regime, sources said, adding that the underlying objective would be to enhance trade by removing the roadblocks.

Foreign ministers of Pakistan and India after their talks here on February 16 had both in their separate statements to the media underlined the importance of the first meeting of the Joint Study Group. Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri hoped it would come up with recommendations, which would be mutually beneficial for both the countries.

The joint study group is expected to make specific recommendations aimed at creating mutually beneficial trade regime between India and Pakistan, officials here said. These recommendations would subsequently be considered within the composite dialogue framework.

Referring to India's most rigid tariff regime in the region with numerous hidden taxes, sources said, the experts would specifically look into what kind of barriers have been imposed and how they can be removed. From Islamabad's perspective an important question would be as to why despite the grant of MFN status to Pakistan by India exports have not picked up.

When the Indian business community raised the issue of MFN status with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz during his visit to Delhi in November 2004, he had also pointed out that India's tariff structure was one of the highest in the world, and underlined the need for first creating a level-playing field.

Other important issues to be discussed at the Joint Study Group meeting are sale of diesel to Pakistan; MFN status to India; duty concessions; agricultural imports, and opening up branches of banks, it is learnt.

The Prime Minister during his meeting with his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh in November had told him that if any Indian bank were to approach the government of Pakistan to open its branch here he would personally ensure approval within 48 hours. However, so far no application has been received from the Indian side.

The decision to form an expert-level group on trade was taken when the foreign secretaries of the two countries met in Delhi last year in September, ahead of the foreign ministers level meeting, to review the first round of the composite dialogue.

Initially, it was decided that the group would be headed by the joint secretaries of the commerce ministries but subsequently the two sides agreed to upgrade it to the secretaries-level.