India to trim number of items under sensitive list for SAARC countries

18 Aug 2012 Evaluate

With an aim to expand trade in goods, India has decided to prune the number of items in the sensitive list for SAARC countries. The shifting of items from sensitive list to general category would reduce the import duties and boost the bilateral trades.

As per the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), India's imports are classified under two lists - the MFN list and sensitive list. And, the products listed in sensitive list would not get reduction in import duties. India's sensitive list for least developed countries (LDC) like Bangladesh has just 25 items. While, the same for non-LDC like Pakistan is about 800 commodities. The current proposal is to cut 30 per cent of products under the sensitive list for non-LDCs under SAFTA.

In order to boost trade with India, Pakistan had shifted from a small positive list regime to a negative list, which will increase trade of about 6,500 goods.

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