Sunday, January 1 2006 15:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: Pakistan today (Jan 1,2005) said it is yet to ratify the much-awaited South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) that would pave the way for free trade of goods and services among SAARC countries, but hoped that it would do it 'very soon'.

"The ratification process is underway. It is just that it was not completed yesterday (the deadline). We hope to do it very soon," Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam told sources today.

She, however, declined to give a definite timeframe for the ratification.

According to Pakistan's Minister of State for Commerce Hamid Yar Haraj, SAFTA is intact but its implementation from January one is 'next to impossible'.

"Free Trade Area agreement was singed by the Commerce Ministry but free trade with India is issue of such importance that it has to be decided by the Government. We don't have any fresh directive from the government (about implementation of SAFTA)," he was quoted as saying in the media here.

As per schedule, the SAFTA protocol, signed by the SAARC countries in Islamabad on January 4-6 2004, comes into force on January 1, 2006, and fully materializes by December 31, 2015. So far Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, Bangladesh and India have ratified the draft agreed in the last meeting of the committee of experts of SAARC countries held in Nepal, while Pakistan and Sri Lanka withheld the ratification.

The failure of Pakistan to ratify it, apparently due to fears that it would end up opening its markets to Indian goods in a big way, came as a big disappointment for Pakistan's business and industry as they looked to capitalize on the expected quantum jump in bilateral trade.