HONG KONG, Dec 16: Indonesia will soon send a technical team to Pakistan to work details for expanding bilateral trade between the two countries. This was stated by Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan at a press conference here on Friday.

Mr Khan said that the Indonesian minister assured him about resolving difficulties faced by Pakistan’s kinno exporters because of Jakarta’s unfavorable import tax policy. The Indonesian minister assured that the kinno issue would be resolved soon.

In a meeting with the Jordanian minister, the minister said that he discussed the possibility of expanding bilateral trade and initiating the process of a Framework Agreement leading to a free trade agreement (FTA).

The Iranian Minister, Mustafa Kazmi, during a meeting requested for Pakistan’s support for their early accession to the WTO through technical capacity-building.

Mr Khan said that he had requested the Iranian minister for early ratification of the preferential trade agreement (PTA) between the two countries.

Briefing the newsmen about negotiations, the minister said that it was difficult to predict the negotiations’ success, particularly in the area of agriculture. He added that the members of newly-formed 110-member group stood united to mount pressure on the EU and the US for agricultural reforms to provide fair trade opportunities to the developing world.

However, the US Trade Representative Rob Portman, who was scheduled to discuss these issues with the Cairns group, did not show up while the EU continued to maintain its earlier position of not opening up its market to the agriculture products originating from developing countries.

Referring to negotiations on industrial goods, Mr Khan said that Pakistan’s interest would be safeguarded during the talks, adding the position in this regard would become clear by Saturday.