Pakistan to press ahead with composite dialogue
New Delhi: India and Pakistan have agreed to press ahead with their composite dialogue, the External Affairs Ministry spokesman said soon after the Pakistan Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, met the External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh.

Aziz will be holding discussions with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today on a host of issues relating to SAARC as also in the bilateral context. The Pakistani leader will extend a formal invitation to Singh to attend the SAARC Summit in Dhaka in January.

Bangladesh takes over the SAARC Chairmanship from Pakistan at this summit.

Aziz also met the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, L.K. Advani, and the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
He also met the four factions of the separatist Kashmiri leadership.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Shabir Shah and Yasin Malik are said to have had separate meetings with Aziz followed by a joint dinner meeting.

The meeting between Aziz and the United Progressive Alliance chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, that was scheduled for Wednesday and was "to be confirmed" in the circulated programme, will not take place. No official explanation was forthcoming, but Ms.Gandhi is said to be indisposed. The Pakistani side had asked for a meeting with the Congress president.

Aziz, will also meet the Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, today.
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Aiyar and Aziz to meet over gas pipeline project
New Delhi: Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar will meet Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz over the proposed $4.16 billion gas pipeline from Iran to India.

New Delhi wants Pakistan to accord Most Favoured Nation status to India and provide security guarantees before considering the gas pipeline project. India also wants Islamabad to guarantee security of physical infrastructure, as 760-km of the 2775-km pipeline will pass through Pakistan, and guarantee uninterrupted supplies.

Iran has been pursuing the pipeline proposal, which will save India millions of dollars in energy cost, with New Delhi and Islamabad since 1996. But tensions between the two countries has blocked progress. Pakistan is expected to get $600-800 million annually in transit fee alone from the proposed pipeline.

The pipeline will connect Iran's gas fields at Assaluyah (South Pars) to India's main trunk line of HBJ.
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World Bank report on State Fiscal Reforms in India
New Delhi: Alarmed at the deteriorating financial health of states, World Bank has suggested sweeping reforms, including early introduction of value-added tax, expenditure control and other fiscal discipline measures to eliminate their revenue deficit by 2007-08.

"Radical restructuring of state finances is not only necessary for faster development but a concerted effort in expenditure control, revenue augmentation and debt relief is needed," the report has stated.

In a report titled `State Fiscal Reforms in India: Progress and Prospects,' the World Bank has suggested that the Finance Commission be made a permanent body. It has also recommended an overhaul of the role of Planning Commission with respect to State Finances.

The World Bank launched the report here at a workshop hosted by the National Institute of Public Finance Policy (NIPFP).

The report has noted that one major source of difficulty in implementing reforms in the system of Centre-State transfers is that different central actors determine different components of central transfers. It has argued that making Finance Commission a permanent body (as it is in Australia for example) would improve coordination and data collection.

On overhauling the role of Planning Commission with respect to State Finances, the report has made a case for elimination of the distinction between "Plan" and "non-Plan" expenditures as it lacks 'economic rationale'. It also held that the practice of providing Planning Commission approval for a `Plan size' for each State has little justification.

The report recommended that multi year plans, if needed, should encompass the entirety of resources available for development in the State. The Planning Commission could then focus on the much more important role of being an overall strategy, monitoring, evaluation and reporting agency with respect to both fiscal and development outcomes, the report has said.
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PHDCCI: Trade with SAARC nations up seventy five per cent
New Delhi: The country's trade with SAARC nations has grown by 75 per cent in rupee terms during 2003-04 compared to the previous fiscal, according to a PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) study.

"It is a good turning point for India to consolidate the trade with SAARC countries and to take it to a higher orbit of growth. Care also has to be taken to encourage the other SAARC countries to increase their exports to India since some of the countries are very keen to enhance their market access to the expanding Indian market," the PHDCCI has said in a statement here.

Also, India's trade with Pakistan has grown by over 30 per cent in 2003-04 compared to the previous financial year. India's exports to Pakistan showed a 32 per cent jump, while imports into India increased by 22 per cent in 2003-04.
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PM: Scale-down tariffs to ASEAN levels
New Delhi: India will have to scale down its tariffs to the levels prevalent in ASEAN countries to facilitate closer co-operation and boost trade ties with the economies of that region as well as of East Asia, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has said.

Driving home the point that there was no more time to lose on this count, Dr Singh said: "For the last 10 years, successive finance ministers have said our tariff levels should move down and approach ASEAN levels. We have moved a great deal in that direction, but a lot needs to be done still." The Prime Minister was speaking at a select gathering, after releasing a commemorative stamp to mark the 121st birth anniversary of the late Seth Walchand Hirachand, business and maritime visionary of yesteryears.

The Prime Minister was confident that now, India was in a position to bring down its tariff to the levels prevailing in the ASEAN countries to boost investments.
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Kamal Nath: India and Pak must focus on trade ties
Islamabad: The bilateral trade between India and Pakistan could be stepped up to $5 billion in two years if there was free trade and the existing trade barriers between them were removed, the Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Kamal Nath, said today.

Speaking at the joint reception hosted in his honour by six Chambers of Commerce representing different regions of Pakistan in Islamabad last evening, Mr Kamal Nath urged both sides "not to carry the baggage of the past but to look forward. Both India and Pakistan are somewhat like two passengers waiting in the departure lounge with boarding cards. Now they should have the courage to board it".

About 100 Pakistan businessmen attended the reception. The Minister said that the bilateral Indo-Pak trade at less than $400 million was a minuscule percentage of the total global trade of the two countries.
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