ISLAMABAD, Aug 19: Federal Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan said on Thursday that Pakistan would accord Most- Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India once distortions in different sectors of the industry are sorted out in a way to provide a level-playing field to the businessmen of the two countries.

Chairing the concluding session of a three-day seminar on 'WTO Post-Cancun Developments: Options for South Asia', the minister elaborated level-playing field as maintaining of equal tariff structure on goods and services, removal of subsidies both at domestic and export level, elimination of para-tariffs and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) in both countries.

"Islamabad has asked New Delhi to provide details about economic reforms it has taken during the last years. We would provide information about our reforms to India," he said.

Mr. Khan said that despite the MFN status by India, Pakistan's exports to India did not register any tangible growth. "This shows that some thing is wrong somewhere. India is ready to talk," he said.

He said that Pakistan has already lowered its tariff on both agriculture and industrial goods and almost liberalized its trade regime. "We do not provide any subsidy on our agriculture sector," he said.

The minister said that this region was far behind in regional trade and that all over the world regional trade comprised a major portion of exports of many countries. To a question, he said that the challenge will be to address the issues of least developed countries (LDCs) in the Safta.

He said South Asian countries should take advantages of the opportunities available under WTO regimes and if they eliminate subsidies, their GDP could rise and they could become self-sufficient, specially in the cotton sector.

Given the overview of the trade negotiations, Mr. Khan specifically talked about the agreement on agriculture. He denied the commonly held belief that Pakistan was going to lose under the WTO regime.

He stressed that it was in the country's interest that export subsidies should be eliminated by the developed world and that there should be a substantial reduction in domestic support in terms of subsidies in agriculture while simultaneously there should be substantial market access in the agriculture sector.

He pointed out that agriculture tariffs were almost at the level of industrial tariffs. He gave the example of cotton for which there was zero tariff in Pakistan.

He stressed that the emphasis of Pakistan was on making its private sector more competitive in terms of costs and quality and a number of initiatives have been taken in this context in the trade policy.

He admitted that there was a definite lack of awareness about WTO issue among general public but "we are making progress as issue is being debated in the Parliament and public sector so intensively."

The two thirds of Pakistan's exports comprise textile and clothing. "We must prepare our exporters to face the post-quota regime." Answering a question he said, "We will not take trade disputes to dispute settlement forums of WTO but will resolve these issues bilaterally."

He ruled out the concern of small farmers that Corporate Agriculture Farming (CAF) is going to negatively affect livelihoods of poor farmers and small agriculture sector. He said, "I am yet to see a living example of CAF in the country. We will protect our farmers and take the point of view of civil society and research organizations."