In his biggest peace offensive since regaining power in May, Pak prime minister Nawaz Sharif is sending Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab in Pakistan, to Delhi on Friday.
Sharif Jr. is the longest-serving CM of Punjab, and the unofficial No.2 in Pakistan and the Pakistan Muslim league (Nawaz).
The public content of the visit includes kabaddi in ludhiana and talking shop with the Badals on agricultural sweepstakes among two “land-locked neighbours.”
But there’s more to it than provincial Punjabi niceties. The visiting CM is being given an audience with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
This, Pakistani news reports tell us, will involve Shahbaz Sharif handing over a letter and a possible invitation from Nawaz Sharif – a gesture of some consequence, coming as it does in the dying months of the government in India and two misunderstandings, one on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September over “dehati aurat,” and another one earlier this month when Sharif purportedly talked of war over Kashmir.
The business content matches up.
The Punjab strongman will act as an unofficial commerce minister. With business running in his blood - the family owns the Ittefaq Group - the pilot of the visit, befittingly, is Anand Sharma, the commerce minister.
Sharma hopes to leave a lasting imprint on Indo-Pak trade. So, he recently sent a hint wanting to talk shop with a counterpart. Since Nawaz Sharif holds the commerce portfolio, and Khurram Dastagir Khan, the Pakistani MoS for commerce would have got pegged with E.M. Sudarsa Natchiappan in Udyog Bhawan, the stage was set for Shahbaz Sharif to lead the Pak side.
Accordingly, Sharma will plunge into the meeting straight after he returns from the Mandela ceremonies Friday.
Indo-Pak trade clocks around $2billion annually. Pakistan contributes about $600million. Additionally, a black market thrives via Dubai.
I have often found businessmen in Pakistan fixated on this asymmetry and the spoils from rerouting. But discussions this time revealed a constituency just as keen to have 24-hour custom clearance at the Attari-Wagah check post. The official timings are 12 hours of day time, but gates seldom open before 10am and they close promptly at 3.30pm. The resultant queues of trucks can be a kilometer long. Some miscreants even planted heroine in cement bags!
Pak Inc is reconciled to two large trading partners, India and China, in their neighbourhood and consumers benefitting! “Pakistan would run a trade deficit with India just as it does with China, and surpluses with other countries… (but) Trade liberalization will unambiguously benefit Pakistani consumers, since product prices fall and consumer choice increases. This would (also) lead to additional customs revenue for Pakistan - if corruption can be avoided in the collection of customs duties. Within the protective walls of regional economies, both countries can achieve specialization in various subsectors of the economy. Moreover, the strengthening of bilateral/regional trade would also cushion the economies of both countries from global financial or stock-market shocks,” Ishrat Husain, a respected economist and dean of Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, has written.
Majyd Aziz Balgamwala, an ex President of the Karachi Chamber, has detailed the crying need for deeper connectivity over mobility – wagons, shipping, air travel and visas, and ending the hullabaloo over most-favoured nation status to India. “MFN” translates into “sabse pyaara mulq” – a difficult phrase to sell in Pakistan! Non-Discriminatory Access – “NDA” is the alternative being contemplated.
Till that dawn, mobile phones continue to go kaput on both sides; my international credit card, honoured in distant South Sudan, is useless in Pakistan; and despite the efficient TCA Raghavan as our man in Islamabad, there’s still no institutionalized mechanism to modernize the visa regime. “Multiple entry” of a civilized time frame is available only to applicants over 65 years of age, those married to a partner from the other country, and children below 12. Select tour operators get to usher up to 50 in a group for 30 days on single entry: India has designated 20 such tour operators; Pak hasn’t even done that.
The refrain among Pak Inc is that each time there’s a terror strike Indians should stop demonizing everyone in Pak. ‘This is a different Pakistan – a civilian regime has replaced a civilian one for the first time. Even the army and the ISI are seeing of terrorism (at our own doorstep) and perils of economic stagnation – and Mian Saheb (the PM) is demanding accountability from both,’ they argue, Majyd even champions deeper measures like meeting rooms for SMEs in a “no-man’s-land between India and Pakistan,” and an SEZ soon after!
Trade delegations have been crossing the border under various umbrellas. A prominent one is the Pakistan India Joint Business Forum, headed by Nestle Pakistan chairman Yawar Ali and Hero Group’s Sunil Kant Munjal. Their agriculture task force is meeting in ludhiana on the same dates as the Shahbaz Sharif visit.
(The writer is CEO and Co-Founder, India Strategy Group, Hammurabi & Solomon Consulting llP. Twitter handle: @therohitbansal).