Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday rejected the import proposal of cotton and sugar from India. Imran khan decided that Pakistan can’t proceed with any exchange with India under the current situations.
The PM after the meeting with the cabinet on Friday instructed the Ministry of Commerce and his financial group to promptly find ways to provide the relevant departments through alternative different sources of imports of commodities.
This news was declared after the meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee on Wednesday directed by the newly appointed finance minister Hammad Azhar, announced that there will be no import business of cotton and sugar with India in nearly about two years.
This reaction was made due to India’s declaration to revoke Article 370 that provided ‘the special status to Jammu and Kashmir’ on 5 August 2019. In the meeting, the proposal for the trade with India was presented to allow the import of sugar & cotton but then the ministers decided to ban trade from India. And Imran Khan endorsed the decision of the cabinet that involves the restriction of trade business with India.
The foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that ‘there can be no normalisation with India until they reverse the decision on J&K, released in 2019’. After the decision of ECC the PM of India and Pakistan shared letters in which Imran states that ‘Pakistan wants a peaceful, cooperative relationship with all neighbours including India’.
The Indian PM Narendra Modi said ‘Indian desires cordial, cooperative relations with the Pakistan’ and also cleared that you cannot go ahead with both “talks and terror”. India stated that it is the responsibility to create a positive free environment without the rule of terrorism.
After 1947 there were tensions between Pakistan and India on various issues, and Kashmir is one of them. Many times, the relations between India and Pakistan have deteriorated, the recent terror attack in Pulwama attack 2019 in which 40 soldiers of CRPF were killed has deployed the trade relations, and even the URI attack was the reason in past that strained the ties between the countries.
Azhar said that the import service of cotton and sugar would be expected to lift by the end of June 2021. He said that there is a large demand for raw cotton in the country therefore we permitted the other countries across the world to import cotton but is only restricted to India.
During the Covid-19 last year in May, Pakistan removed the ban on the trade of medicines and necessary drugs from India. But after the cabinet meeting of ECC, it banned the import of sugar and cotton from India in 2021 due to the decision made by the Indian government in August 2019 to revoke the special status of J&K.
The law implemented by the Indian government on Article 370 angered the Pakistan government that demoted the collateral relations with the country. Pakistan also restricted the flights, and transport, and banned the import and export services with India.
