Pakistan’s leading businessman advised the two countries to resolve their disputes and start trade to fight poverty in the region.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Leading Pakistani businessman Muhammad Mansha claims that backchannels are working between Islamabad and New Delhi that will hopefully yield good results, Dawn news reported.
“If things improve between the two neighbours, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could visit Pakistan in a month,” the chairman of Nishat Group told a gathering of businessmen at the Lahore Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday.
He advised the two countries to resolve their disputes and start trade to fight poverty in the region.
“If the economy does not improve, the country may face disastrous consequences. Pakistan should improve trade relations with India and take a regional approach to economic development. Europe fought two great wars, but ultimately settled for peace and regional development. There is no permanent enmity,” the Dawn quoted Mansha as saying
Trade relations between Pakistan and India have been suspended since August 2019 when New Delhi revoked the law providing special status or autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir. .
There have been reports of backchannel talks last summer between the two economies of the region brokered by a Gulf state, the report says. However, the government said the talks were discontinued in the aftermath of the abrogation of special status to J&K.
On the domestic front, Mansha said “progressive, market-oriented policies” were the key to success. Through price control to capital market operations, reducing trade barriers and minimising state influence on the economy, especially through privatisation and austerity, Pakistan can truly achieve rapid growth.
Privatisation, he added, promotes various sectors of the economy.
Mian Muhammad Mansha emphasised the importance of improving relations with countries in the neighbourhood and said one of the reasons for Europe’s development was its softening of borders and promotion of bilateral trade.
