LAHORE, June 4: The budget for the next fiscal year will carry a number of incentives for exporters, addressing a number of their longstanding demands.

“Exporters will be major beneficiaries of the incentives which the government is going to unveil in the budget for 2005-06,” Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan told reporters here on Saturday.

“It is going to be a very important budget from the exporters’ point of view,” he said, refusing to give details of the proposed incentives. “What I can tell you is that the next budget will help boost exports.”

In reply to a query, the minister said the commerce secretary was scheduled to leave for the US this month for “further talks on the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) with Washington and other trade related matters”.

Answering another question, Mr Khan said: “No breakthrough is expected on trade between India and Pakistan without the resolution of political disputes between the two neighbours. Progress on the political front will lead to progress in economic relations.”

He said the balance of trade was still in favour of India in spite of the fact that it had given Pakistan the MFN status while Islamabad maintained a list of 768 tradable items (out of 6,000). “It is because of tariff and non-tariff barriers which needed to be removed if any improvement in bilateral trade is to be sought.”

He said Pakistan would host a ministerial meeting of G-20 in September this year.