NEW DELHI, Feb 27: Pakistani businessmen are heading for India in droves, but they are still apprehensive of the proverbial political twist that has queered their pitch in the past, a senior representative from Lahore said on Friday.

"We are here because our government and your government have allowed us to be here," said Mian Anjum Nisar, president of the Lahore Chambers of Commerce and Industry. He is leading a 70-strong delegation on a week-long tour of India.

Mr Nisar said Pakistani businessmen were relying on the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (Safta) signed in Islamabad among seven South Asian countries to show the way ahead.

Safta would be fully operational in 2006. "We are here to touch base with our Indian counterparts to do the homework for the good times ahead. I am an optimist." The delegates from Lahore include representatives of the mechanical, textiles, pharmaceuticals, steel, herbal and auto parts industries, he said.

Regional trade would benefit South Asia. "If intra-EU trade is 46 per cent of Europe's global trade then there is no reason for intra-Saarc trade to show up a dismal figure of 4.5 per cent," Mr Nisar told Dawn.

The Lahore Chamber members met representatives of the Punjab Haryana Chambers of Commerce on Friday. They have been invited by the Punjab Chief Minister, Captain Amerinder Singh, to meet the Punjab business community in Kapurthala during their visit.

"We have the advantage of the moment with us," Mr Nisar said philosophically. "We can change everything now, from our poverty, our illiteracy to the issue of drinking water. Everything. We have more than half the population living below two-dollars a day."

But Mr Nisar was sanguine that businessmen could do little to promote trade, much less goodwill, if the governments of their countries were not inclined to encourage them.

"We do not have access to the instruments that make or shape policies. The only thing we know is that good relations with India are overdue and we must solve all our problems."

In this sense, Mr Nisar was clear that Kashmir was among the major obstacles that could yet derail the process, and, thereby, the businessmen's enthusiasm. "We are speaking with hindsight. We have had good trade ties in the past. But they were short-lived." The delegates will participate in the first ever "Made in Pakistan" exhibition opening in Delhi next week.