NEW DELHI, Aug 1: India and Pakistan promised concrete measures on Wednesday to inaugurate a new era of bilateral trade, which both expect to grow to $10 billion by 2010 from the current level of less than $2 billion.

Pakistan’s Commerce Secretary Syed Asif Shah and his Indian counterpart G.K. Pillai issued a joint statement after the talks.

It said the talks were held in a cordial and constructive atmosphere.

However, inside the conference hall, where they met for two days, the discussions were more to the point.

Mr Shah told Mr Pillai that although the four rounds of trade and commerce talks held so far had “achieved many milestones” there was still a lot of ground to be covered for which “we need to retain our trust in this process of composite dialogue.”

For example, the Pakistan side did not miss the link between trade and politics.

“Progress means forward movement on all fronts and the resolution of deep-rooted issues, including political ones, which our two peoples, and our two countries have faced over the past half a century,” Mr Shah stated.

“These issues confront our people who otherwise share common history and common cultural bonds.”

The progress in talks was underscored by the importance they gave to having their bank branches in each other’s country to boost trade.

Both promised to hasten the applications processing “for the two bank branches in either country within six months of the receipt of applications or by December, 31 2007.”

Officials close to the talks said Pakistan had proposed the opening of a branch each of the UBL and National Bank of Pakistan in New Delhi, while India had suggested the state-owned State Bank of India and Bank of India to have their branch in Karachi.

Non-tariff barriers placed by India on imports from Pakistan has been a sticking point with Islamabad.

Mr Shah, however, told Dawn that he felt that there was a realisation on the Indian side that something had to be done to correct this.

The joint statement reflected the spirit.

It said: “The Indian side informed that a Task Force comprising representatives from various ministries and departments of government of India has been constituted to address the issues of Non-Tariff Barriers and para-tariffs. The Task Force will make recommendations in a time-bound manner for removing these barriers to provide greater market access to all members of Saarc.”

The Indian side invited the Pakistan side to identify 20 products of its export interest “so that India could inform Pakistan about the detailed import regime on these products with a view to facilitating their import to India.”

The statement said that to facilitate import of cement from Pakistan, India would quickly complete all statutory certification related formalities.

Mr Shah told journalists that Pakistan could provide around 15 to 20 thousand million ton of cement to India.

To boost import of tea from India it was agreed to facilitate and encourage the trading of tea through rail.

In his opening remarks at the talks, Mr Shah voiced concern at the trade mismatch. He said their bilateral trade in 2004-05 was $835 million, and had doubled by 2006-07 to reach $1.6 billion.

“For the first time imports from India to Pakistan have crossed the figure of $1 billion and currently stand at $1.25 billion.

Our expectation is that this market access provided to India via enlarged list would probably take India’s export to Pakistan beyond the $2 billion figure during 2007-08.”

Pakistan’s exports to India on the other hand have grown slowly from $280 million in 2004-05 to only $370 million in 2006-07.

“The balance of trade is patently in favour of India and has increased by 330 per cent,” Mr Shah complained.

“This ever widening trade imbalance between our two countries is disconcerting.”

India meanwhile proposed that in order to reduce pressure on Attari-Lahore rail route and to improve trade, the Munabao- Khokrapar route should be opened for freight movement. Pakistan side noted the proposal.