Islamabad: Pakistan's new government may "assess" whether the country's 60-year-old policy of no investment from India was in its national interests, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has indicated.

"We could not develop trade relations with India to the optimum potential. You cannot ignore the fact that a huge (amount of) trade is being carried out through third parties. We have been pursuing a policy of no investment from India for the last 60 years," Qureshi said in an interview with The Friday Times daily.

"Trade and investment is a big confidence-building measure in itself. We have to be realistic enough to assess whether such a policy is in our national interests," he said.

"Trade and investment relations as well as openness and dialogue with India is in our own interests," the Minister said.

Qureshi described the statement by Pakistan People's Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari regarding the development of full trade relations with India as "absolutely realistic" as economic ties could act as a confidence-building measure.

Source : PTI