Meeting to discuss BIT with US today

Published February 14, 2006

ISLAMABAD, Feb 13: A high-level meeting will be held on Tuesday to consider the remaining undecided articles of the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) with the United States.

Sources told Dawn on Monday that the meeting, to be headed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, would be attended by senior officials from the ministries of commerce and finance and the Board of Investment.

The sources said that Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan will give a detailed briefing to the prime minister on salient features of the BIT with the US. According to the sources, Pakistan was in a hurry to address the major concerns of US negotiators, which they had linked with the signing of the agreement.

The sources said that in case the issues were resolved, the agreement was expected to be signed during the upcoming visit of the US president to Pakistan next month. Pakistan’s negotiating team would leave for Washington before the visit of the US president for a possible final round of negotiations on the treaty.

The areas, which are yet to be decided, included definition of some key terms, scope of the treaty, intellectual property rights position in Pakistan, taxation and tariff on US investment and regulatory issues.

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