Jammu, Apr 7: Finance Minister, Abdul Rahim Rather today said a ‘Banking Model’ has been proposed by the Department of Financial Services, Government of India, for facilitating banking service for LoC trade to replace existing barter system.
 He said the matter has been taken up with the Government of Pakistan for their consent.
 The FM said the proposed banking model shall be ‘a pure commercial transaction between the banks on the two sides of the LoC without any involvement of the Central Banks.’
 He said the trade has been exempted from VAT and the number of trade days increased from 2 to 4 a week to give boost to it. “The construction of Trade Facilitation Centres (TFC) at Salamabad, Uri and Chakan-da-Bagh, Poonch on this side of LoC is in full swing at a cost of 8.95 crore and Rs 7.95 crore respectively,” Rather said, adding that a proposal to make the list of goods for LoC trade more specific has also been sent by the Ministry of External Affairs to Government of Pakistan which also focuses on expanding the list of tradable goods from the existing 21 items, an official statement said.
 Maintaining that the cross Loc trade is gaining momentum as an important business activity, Rather said the State Government especially, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is very keen for opening more trade routes between two sides with adequate banking mechanism and telecommunication facilities.
 He said the ISD facilities are already in place to the trades organization of both the sides and officers related to the cross LoC trade.
 Rather was speaking at a function organized to release the first of its kind survey report on cross-LoC trade.
 Rather hoped the first ever perception survey on peace-building and economic potential of cross LoC trade prepared by IRF will provide a feed back to the concerned authorities on both sides of the LoC for removing all the impediments and bottlenecks in cross LOC trade.
 The function was attended by a galaxy of economists, academics, representatives of business chambers and key stake holders involved in the cross LoC trade including President, Jammu and Kashmir Joint Chamber of Commerce, and Industry, Mubeen Shah, Prof Economics, University Of Jammu, Dipankar Sen Gupta, Former Director General of Police, M.M Khajuria, Former Vice Chancellor, Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah, University, Masud Choudhary, Director Indus Research Foundation, Zafar Choudhary, President, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jammu, Presidents of Industrial Associations of Bari-Brahmina, and Gangyal and Members of Civil Society .

Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 8 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST