NDMA in place of MFN between India and Pakistan

January 20, 2014

In order to boost bilateral trade, Commerce Ministers of India and Pakistan have agreed on a Non-Discriminatory Market Access (NDMA) on reciprocal basis to each other, in place of the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN). India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma accepted Pakistan Trade Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan’s invitation to visit Pakistan in February 2014.
India and Pakistan have decided to:

Expedite the process of giving bank licences so that Indian and Pakistani banks to operate in the other country to facilitate trade.
Carry out trade through the Wagah-Attari border on all days of the week and allowed containers carrying shipments from both sides.
Organize the meetings of the technical working groups of customs, railways, banking, standards organizations and energy.
Organize a joint Vintage Car Rally between Amritsar and Lahore, to coincide with the coming ‘India Show’ in order to promote people to people contact.

About Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN)

In international economic relations and international politics, MFN is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade.
A country grants this clause to another nation if it is interested in increasing trade with that country. Countries achieving most favored nation status are given specific trade advantages viz. reduced tariffs on imported goods, etc.
MFN restrains domestic special interests from obtaining protectionist measures.
MFN allows smaller countries, in particular, to participate in the advantages that larger countries often grant to each other, whereas on their own, smaller countries would often not be powerful enough to negotiate such advantages by themselves.
As MFN clauses promote non-discrimination among countries, they also tend to promote the objective of free trade in general.

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