NEW DELHI, Aug 10: Pakistan and India announced important measures on Wednesday to boost bilateral trade and proposed shipping and aviation talks in September with a rare urgency to widen their business links.

Indian Commerce Secretary S.N. Menon and Pakistan’s acting Commerce Secretary Syed Asif Shah concluded two days of discussions here with a joint statement on economic and commercial cooperation, which now becomes part of their composite dialogue process.

“The discussions were held in a cordial and constructive atmosphere. The two sides recognized the scope for further increase in bilateral trade and discussed further measures to enhance mutually beneficial economic and commercial cooperation,” the statement said.

The two sides agreed that aeronautical talks would be held in Pakistan in September 2005 to review the existing air services agreement. A bilateral meeting to review the Shipping Protocol of 1975 would also be held in Pakistan in September 2005.

They also agreed that the second meeting of the joint study group (JSG) would be convened at an early date in Islamabad. The JSG meeting would be preceded by the meeting of the sub-groups on non-tariff barriers (NTBs) and customs cooperation and trade facilitation to formulate recommendations for consideration by the JSG.

The two sides recalled the decision taken during the visit of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to India in November 2004 to open branches of scheduled banks in each other’s country and agreed that requests for opening of bank branches in both the countries would be processed expeditiously to facilitate bilateral trade relations.

The two sides also noted the progress achieved in concluding a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to benefit from each other’s experiences.

They expressed the hope that a fibre-optic link between Amritsar and Lahore would be established and operationalized at the earliest. Sources said that Pakistan was keen on this link as an alternative facility to make sure Internet connectivity remains uninterrupted in case of any undersea cable fault.

The cable connection augurs well for an anticipated increase in communication links, including cell phone services that will come with burgeoning trade and commerce.

A large number of businessmen would benefit from Delhi’s direct air links with Islamabad while bulk trade would be boosted with shipping links between Mumbai and Karachi. India says both countries should exploit the complementarities between their economies. It has proposed to Pakistan to identify those goods which are sourced from third countries by both, but which the two can source from each other.

Trade between India and Pakistan had been showing a satisfactory rate of increase over the past few years, while the growth had been particularly robust during the last financial year.