Should India trade with Pakistan?
- Thread starter RPK
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I think India is already trading with Pakistan. There is also some indirect trade through UAE. However, the current climate is such that trade volumes have dropped naturally. It would be better if the trade could target specifically those areas where the common and poor Pakistanis would benefit rather than big businesses or politicians or army owned enterprises.
thakur_ritesh
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There is a very strong case in favor of having and continuing the upward trajectory of bilateral trade with pakistan.
India needs to do every thing to move ahead economically because each time we do that the people of our vast country are bound to benefit who in certain cases face abject poverty and the only way to move them out of that is to bring about economic benefits. The trade between India and Pakistan happens through either the west coast or through north via wagha, so there are direct benefits to be had for population residing in these areas, and not only that, since the manufacturing is happening all over India so as a whole people from across the country stand to benefit. There is a tremendous boost to employment generation both direct and indirect, which has direct repercussions on the earnings, cost of living, and the life style one maintains.
There are cost benefits to be had where it is assumed that the total official/unofficial trade between the two countries is well over 5b usd. One can only imagine what those benefits would be since some thing like 2b usd of that gets routed through other states like dubai, and in certain cases iran which leads to a case of multiple taxation which only shoots up the costs and in the end consumer is at loss. Then a lot of unaccounted trade happens by way of smuggling which is a direct loss to the state exchequer, which if tapped not only helps increase the state exchequer which further helps in planning a better budgetary expenditure but it also argues well to show the over all benefit in terms of numbers that are achieved to those who oppose it.
In India around 40% of our agriculture produce goes a waste, though the reason for that is primarily non availability of warehouses and cold storages at a large scale, but still if Pakistan’s market is tapped a lot of this will not go down the drain as rot, and with inflation in Pakistan sky rocketing they would be more than happy to use this produce which only helps in catering to the demand which also means good politics for one is able to look after the basic necessity of people which I guess is the top most priority of any government of the day.
There is also a case of, “if we wont, someone else will”, then why not us. India each year sends trade delegations all over the world to source markets for its goods, services, produce etc and here is a market which is right across the door so why let it be a by gone and with so much cost benefit to be had soon enough it would be like putting them on opium and they will have to turn to us for sourcing all those goods, services etc.
Pakistan says if India was to be given a free hand they would sweep the market which will render all their domestic industry useless Is it really so, because the only thing that brings best out of you is competition and in all this the beneficiary will have to be the consumer where there stands a case of cost/price benefit. The more important thing is that Pakistan has always been a import based economy where right from the time of its inception they focused on importing and in this the sino-pak trade also is an important case in point where the trade stands at 6.5b usd out of which pak’s exports to the prc just stand at 1.2b usd, then why have double standards with India?
India is vying for a transit route through Pakistan to regions like the CAR, EU (if they are able to lay down the high speed rail network connecting pak and turkey), a’stan and iran. If we can have a sustainable high trajectory trade with Pakistan then they will be more accommodative to our demands for this will be another confidence building method which also helps in smoothening relations between the two countries. In return they could access the south east asia market, Bangladesh, Nepal, and even sri lanka since trade by land is any day cheaper than trade through sea.
Let us differentiate between emotions and our interests and if we can get to our interests at a reasonable cost we should just grab to the opportunity and trade with Pakistan is certainly one such opportunity.
India needs to do every thing to move ahead economically because each time we do that the people of our vast country are bound to benefit who in certain cases face abject poverty and the only way to move them out of that is to bring about economic benefits. The trade between India and Pakistan happens through either the west coast or through north via wagha, so there are direct benefits to be had for population residing in these areas, and not only that, since the manufacturing is happening all over India so as a whole people from across the country stand to benefit. There is a tremendous boost to employment generation both direct and indirect, which has direct repercussions on the earnings, cost of living, and the life style one maintains.
There are cost benefits to be had where it is assumed that the total official/unofficial trade between the two countries is well over 5b usd. One can only imagine what those benefits would be since some thing like 2b usd of that gets routed through other states like dubai, and in certain cases iran which leads to a case of multiple taxation which only shoots up the costs and in the end consumer is at loss. Then a lot of unaccounted trade happens by way of smuggling which is a direct loss to the state exchequer, which if tapped not only helps increase the state exchequer which further helps in planning a better budgetary expenditure but it also argues well to show the over all benefit in terms of numbers that are achieved to those who oppose it.
In India around 40% of our agriculture produce goes a waste, though the reason for that is primarily non availability of warehouses and cold storages at a large scale, but still if Pakistan’s market is tapped a lot of this will not go down the drain as rot, and with inflation in Pakistan sky rocketing they would be more than happy to use this produce which only helps in catering to the demand which also means good politics for one is able to look after the basic necessity of people which I guess is the top most priority of any government of the day.
There is also a case of, “if we wont, someone else will”, then why not us. India each year sends trade delegations all over the world to source markets for its goods, services, produce etc and here is a market which is right across the door so why let it be a by gone and with so much cost benefit to be had soon enough it would be like putting them on opium and they will have to turn to us for sourcing all those goods, services etc.
Pakistan says if India was to be given a free hand they would sweep the market which will render all their domestic industry useless Is it really so, because the only thing that brings best out of you is competition and in all this the beneficiary will have to be the consumer where there stands a case of cost/price benefit. The more important thing is that Pakistan has always been a import based economy where right from the time of its inception they focused on importing and in this the sino-pak trade also is an important case in point where the trade stands at 6.5b usd out of which pak’s exports to the prc just stand at 1.2b usd, then why have double standards with India?
India is vying for a transit route through Pakistan to regions like the CAR, EU (if they are able to lay down the high speed rail network connecting pak and turkey), a’stan and iran. If we can have a sustainable high trajectory trade with Pakistan then they will be more accommodative to our demands for this will be another confidence building method which also helps in smoothening relations between the two countries. In return they could access the south east asia market, Bangladesh, Nepal, and even sri lanka since trade by land is any day cheaper than trade through sea.
Let us differentiate between emotions and our interests and if we can get to our interests at a reasonable cost we should just grab to the opportunity and trade with Pakistan is certainly one such opportunity.
johnee
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India must stop all trade, cultural and social contact with Pakistan. Not just that but also actively seek to undermine trade of Pakistan globally. At the same time political talks must go on. Instead the opposite is done. Political negotiations are stalled immediately after any incident while other ties continue. This approach is inherently flawed because it makes no difference to Pakistan whether we continue the diplomatic negotiations or not. What will make impact even on an average abdul of Pakistan is cutting off trade, cultural, social and sports ties.
India must let it known to Pakistan and to the world that we are ready to talk about 'issues' but bilateral relations cannot be normalised until terrorism against India from and by Pakistan stops.
There seems to be a certain sympathy towards the average citizens of Pakistan in our policy making which should by shirked immediately. GOI must concern itself with the lives and property of Indians, it has no business sympathising with the plight of Pakistanis(innocent or otherwise). Sure, there may be lot of innocent Pakistani's whose lives may be adversely impacted but that is sadly not our concern. We can only hope that these people will make enough noise to force the elite pakistanis(the decision makers) to open their eyes and stop using terrorism as a weapon against India.
India must let it known to Pakistan and to the world that we are ready to talk about 'issues' but bilateral relations cannot be normalised until terrorism against India from and by Pakistan stops.
There seems to be a certain sympathy towards the average citizens of Pakistan in our policy making which should by shirked immediately. GOI must concern itself with the lives and property of Indians, it has no business sympathising with the plight of Pakistanis(innocent or otherwise). Sure, there may be lot of innocent Pakistani's whose lives may be adversely impacted but that is sadly not our concern. We can only hope that these people will make enough noise to force the elite pakistanis(the decision makers) to open their eyes and stop using terrorism as a weapon against India.
