Most Favoured Nation status to Pakistan: PM Modi to chair high-level meet Thursday

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a high-level meet at his New Delhi residence on Thursday to review India's unilateral grant of Most favoured Nation (MFN) to Pakistan. 

The meet will take place at PM Modi's Lok Kalyan Marg tomorrow morning. 

The Congress had on Monday demanded the withdrawal of the MFN status to Pakistan and an imposition of economic sanctions.

India had unilaterally granted the MFN status to Pakistan in 1996 under WTO's General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Both India and Pakistan are signatories to this, which means they have to treat each other and rest of WTO member countries as favoured trading partners.

According to Assocham, out of India's total merchandise trade of USD 641 billion in 2015-16, Pakistan accounted for a meagre USD 2.67 billion.

India's exports to the neighbouring country worked out to USD 2.17 billion, or 0.83 percent, of the total Indian outward shipments while imports were less than USD 500 million, or 0.13 percent, of the total inward shipments.

India has decided to revisit the 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan as PM Modi on Monday bluntly said that "blood and water cannot flow together".

The decision to chair the meet to review the MFN status to Pakistan comes at a time when India has decided to withdraw itself from 17th SAARC meet scheduled to be held in Islamabad this year.