No political instability in Pakistan: High commissioner in India

Pakistan High Commissioner in India Shahid Malik on Friday said there is no political instability in his country and trade relations with India are normal.

"I do not see any current political instability in Pakistan and trade with India is going on normally," Malik told reporters after an interactive session on 'India-Pakistan Bilateral Trade' organised by the Merchants' Chamber of Commerce here. 

Malik, who visited Kolkata for the first time as the High Commissioner, declined to take any political queries.

On Indo-Pak trade, he said full normalisation of trade relations between the two countries would have to be sequenced. "At the moment, there is no full normalisation of trade relations between the two countries," he said.

He added Pakistan Commerce Minister Ameen Faheen had visited India last year and observed that this was the first time in 35 years that a Pakistani Commerce Minister visited India.

He said India's Commerce Minister Anand Sharma would soon visit Pakistan accompanied by a business delegation.

Malik also said Pakistan would soon come out with a small negative list of items that India cannot export to the neighbouring country. The list would be finalised and ratified by February 2012.

Malik regretted that despite India granting the MFN status to Pakistan in 1995, Pakistani exports had not gone up significantly.