India
never halted trade relations with Pakistan and wants to move towards
normalizing business ties, a senior Indian diplomat here has said, stressing
that today's diplomacy focuses on tourism, trade and technology because
"money speaks its own language". Suresh Kumar, India's Deputy High
Commissioner to Pakistan made these remarks while speaking at the Lahore
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI)on March 16, the Dawn newspaper
reported.
"India always wants better relations with
Pakistan because we cannot change our geography,"
he said. "We didn't stop trade with Pakistan, it was Pakistan that
did it. It would be better to see how we can change our problems and
situations," Kumar added.
In
2019, after New Delhi revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan
suspended bilateral trade with India and expelled its High Commissioner in
Islamabad. India has been maintaining that it desires neighborly relations
with Pakistan while insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an
environment that is free of terror and hostility for such an engagement.
The
trade with Pakistan stood at 329.26 million US dollars in 2020-21 and
830. 58 million US dollars in 2019-20, the data showed.
He
agreed that the number of visas issued by the Indian embassy to Pakistanis
dropped during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, he insisted that the
number has now increased, as 30,000 visas were being issued every year, which
he said was "a huge number". Indian government was also issuing
medical and sports visas to Pakistanis. He said gone were the days when
diplomacy used to focus on compiling political reports. Today's diplomacy, he said, revolved around tourism, trade
and technology "as money speaks its own language".
India
was presently doing trade of 120 billion US dollars with China, in which the
balance of trade is towards China, he said, stressing that imports "are
not always wrong and also have advantages".
Kumar
said that intellectual property has become more important than physical
property. "By sitting in distant countries and manufacturing in other
countries, Europe is making money due to intellectual property rights.
Universities in Europe focus on technology" he said.
He
said transit trade was extremely important as Central Asia was a big market
and India needed access to it. Similarly, Central Asia also needed access to
India.
He
said India was on course to become one of the largest economies. "Our
service sector has grown enormously and now we are focusing on manufacturing,
like automobile and electronics manufacturing," he said.
Lahore
Chamber of Commerce President Kashif Anwar said it was generally thought that
improving economic relations between India and Pakistan was a complex issue
that required addressing a range of political, economic and social factors.
"But we are of the view that the foremost step that could be taken to
improve economic relations between India and Pakistan is to normalize trade
relations. This would bring substantial economic benefits evenly to both the
countries," he said.