Tuesday, March 28 2006 09:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: Signalling their willingness to address non-tarrif barriers to enhanced bilateral trade, India and Pakistan yesterday (Mar 27, 2006) agreed on a road map to finalise a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) for testing of products of their exports interest including garments.

The two countries also reached a consensus on exploring the possibility of a bilateral arrangement on customs cooperation, exchange information on the Certificates of Origin, import and export declarations, customs laws and procedures, valuation and trade statistics, it said.

Two sub groups dealing with Non-Tariff barriers comprising experts and officials had in-depth discussions and worked out a roadmap to finalise the Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) to facilitate trade, a joint statement issued at the end of talks of the Joint Working Group (JWG) formed to iron out differences on tariff and non tariff barriers said.

The MRA was agreed to at a meeting of Joint Working Group (JWG) headed by Commerce Secretary S.M. Menon of India and Syed Asif Shah of Pakistan at their meeting here. The JWG was specially formed to attend to Pakistan complaints of higher tariff and non tariff barriers.

Terming it as a significant progress, Indian officials said MRA is an instrument to eliminate non tariff barriers like testing of goods from the importing country by recognising its testing facilities for import certification.

Under the MRA, goods will not be subjected to testing by the importing country.

The arrangement would help in textiles where exporting countries have to certify that certain banned dies have not been used in their products.