ISLAMABAD, May 24: Pakistan has asked Iran to soften terms of the $200 million credit it pledged at the international donors’ conference last November for the rehabilitation of the Oct 8 earthquake areas.

We hope that Iran would soften the terms and conditions of its loan as other countries have also pledged to provide soft loans to Pakistan for reconstruction of earthquake areas, said adviser to the prime minister on finance, Dr Salman Shah.

He was addressing the inaugural session of a two-day meeting of the Pakistan-Iran Joint Economic Commission (JEC) here on Wednesday.

He said the balance of trade between Pakistan and Iran was in favour of Iran. The total volume of bilateral trade between the two countries during 2004-05 was $389.06million, much below the desired target and true potential of both countries.

“Pakistan would like to have a more positive share in trade with Iran,” he added.

Mr Shah said Pakistan’s rice exporters had been facing difficulties on account of cumbersome testing procedure in Iran.

He said Pakistan was confident that these procedures would be revised to alleviate the hardships of exporters.

He said the JEC had also agreed to review the levy of fee on attestation of documents by Iran according to the spirit of principle of reciprocity. The stringent quarantine conditions on import of fruit to Iran needed to be relaxed to facilitate export of fruit from Pakistan, he maintained.

Finalisation of agreement on International Transport of Passengers and Goods by Road, for transit to other countries would facilitate our trading community to access markets in the region and beyond.

Pakistan Railways had planned rehabilitation of Quetta-Taftan section and it had been included in the Medium Term Development Framework 2005-10. Its upgrading would serve as important corridor for trans-Asian Trans- European rail link, Mr Shah added.