US suspends talks on BIT with Pakistan
Pak Tribune | Thursday September 16, 2010
US suspends talks on BIT with Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: The United Sates has suspended talks on bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with Pakistan, saying that it plans to change its template, a senior official of the Commerce Ministry said on Wednesday.
“Yes, Washington has suspended talks on BIT with Pakistan. The authorities in Washington have informed Pakistan that the US government is going to change the template for BIT and once it gets changed, the talks will start afresh,” a senior official at the Commerce Ministry told our sources requesting anonymity.
Pakistan has incurred over $40 billion loss in the ongoing war against terrorism and the country is estimated to get a hit of $15 billion to $20 billion because of the catastrophic floods.
“Pakistan badly needs investment. When investment from the US starts coming in, investment from other major developed countries will also come in,” the official said.
Pakistan and the US remained in talks on finalising the BIT for the last six years and four rounds of direct negotiations had taken place along with a series of audio and video conferences before the talks were suspended. Differences had appeared on five major articles of the treaty.
The official said that practically both countries had not been in talks since March 2006.
Board of Investment Chairman Salim Mandviwala confirmed that the US had suspended talks because the earlier template was not acceptable to the other countries with which Washington wants to sign BIT.
He said some of the terms and conditions in the earlier template of BIT were not acceptable to Islamabad as well. Mandviwala said that Washington has indicated that the template for BIT would be changed by December this year.
However, sources said that the process would be completed by March next year because of the bureaucratic hurdles.
