Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath told the Indian parliament yesterday that the Saarc ministerial meeting will take up for urgent consideration on the restricted list of 773 items for Indian exports issued by Islamabad despite it ratifying the accord without any reservation.

"The notification of the Government of Pakistan is against the letter and spirit of the South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta) which has come into force from July 1 this year," Nath told the Lok Sabha during the Question Hour.

Voicing surprise over Pakistan's customs notification for Tariff Liberalisation Programme (TLP), which has been issued with a rider that it would be subject to its earlier import policy order, he said the emergency meeting of Safta Ministerial Council (SMC) in Dhaka on August 1-2 will discuss this important trade issue since it was not within the grouping's legal framework.

Referring to Pakistan's import policy, Nath said imports into Pakistan from India were restricted to the items issued in a positive list by its commerce ministry, which currently consists of only 773 items.

Observing that all member states, including Pakistan, ratified Safta without any reservation, Nath said India had requested the Saarc secretary general through a letter on July 7 to hold an urgent meeting of the seven member states.

As per the phased TLP of Safta, non-least developed contracting states -- India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka -- are to bring down tariffs to 20 per cent within two years.

Least developed contracting states -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives and Nepal -- would bring the tariff down to 30 per cent, Nath said mentioning that India and Pakistan are to bring down tariffs from 20 to 0-5 per cent in five years and Colombo has to do this in six years.

Saying that the TLP was not applicable to items kept in the sensitive list by each member states, he said India has kept two sensitive lists, one for Pakistan and Sri Lanka with 865 items and another for other member states with 744 items.

As per the information from the Saarc Secretariat, Sri Lanka has not been able to implement the TLP on the agreed date as its parliament is yet to pass the revenue protection order, he added.

Nath said the customs notifications issued by Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives and Nepal is yet to be received from the Saarc Secretariat.

Asked if Indian exports had reduced in the last few years, Nath said in terms of volume, Indian exports continued to flourish since the country has a very large turnover.

He said member-states, including Bangladesh, have been maintaining that India had a huge trade balance in its favour.

"No agreement can be one-sided and it must benefit both sides. We are carefully studying trade issues keeping in mind the fact that this should benefit all," Nath said adding the Safta accord had come into existence only 24 days back and one has to wait and see how it progressed.

To another question if India was putting additional focus on trade with Saarc countries and those from the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) following the impasse in World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks, he said New Delhi was having free trade agreements with Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Thailand among others and was concentrating on 200 bilateral and regional trade accords.