ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce, Abdul Razak Dawood, has said Pakistan needs to open trade with archrival India, saying that it would be “very beneficial” for the country.

Pakistan’s cabinet last April put off allowing imports of cotton and sugar from neighboring India until Delhi reviewed its 2019 move to revoke the Kashmir region’s special status. Earlier, in an effort to cool local demand and prices, Pakistan’s Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), the country’s top economic decision-making body, had given the go-ahead for the imports, which would have ended nearly two years of trade suspension between the nuclear-armed rivals. But the foreign minister announced the next day the decision had been deferred after a “consensus opinion.”

“As far as the ministry of commerce is concerned, its position is to do trade with India. And my stance is that we should do trade with India and it should be opened now,” Dawood was quoted by Pakistan's Dawn newspaper as telling media on Sunday at an exhibition by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan. “Trade with India is very beneficial to all, especially Pakistan. And I support it.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Both control parts of the region but claim all of it.

The announcements about deferring the trade of cotton and sugar last year had come amid a gradual thawing between the two neighbors after their militaries released a rare joint statement in February 2021, announcing a ceasefire along the Kashmir border.

Pakistan was one of the leading buyers of Indian cotton until 2019, when Islamabad banned imports of goods from India after New Delhi revoked the special status of its portion of the Kashmir region.

Pakistani buyers have reportedly already been making inquiries about buying Indian sugar and cotton, which is being offered at lower prices than supplies from other countries.

Indian traders say they have been offering Indian white sugar at $410 to $420 a tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis, far lower than the domestic price of $694 quoted in Pakistan.

According to a commerce ministry document seen by Reuters, Pakistan’s cotton industry has been grappling with a shortage, requiring the import of up to six million bales of cotton to meet the shortage this financial year.