Improved trade with friendly neighbours will help India increase its GDP by an additional $1.5 trillion by 2025. Former Pakistan finance minister, who has also worked as vice president of The World Bank, Shahid Javed Burki, said that free trade in the region will add about two percentage points to the rate of growth of the region. Burki said that easing of tensions among the countries of South Asia, especially between India and Pakistan, will have many positive consequences for the region. That means, the economic growth of India, which is at present 8% without having good relations with Pakistan, will achieve a double digit growth rate if trade between them flourishes. The improved ties between the neighbours will be a win-win situation for everybody. Burki is a supporter of granting most favoured nation (MFN) status to India by Pakistan. India has extended MFN status to its neighbours. When Burki suggested to the then President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, to grant the MFN status to India, Musharraf expressed his inability to reciprocate saying that the Urdu press will make his life miserable if Pakistan accorded India the status of ‘‘Nihayat Pasandida mulk". Burki even suggested to the Pakistani president that he could change the nomenclature and assign it some new name. But it did not materialize. Burki said greater intra-regional trade will have a significant impact on structure of the economies of smaller countries as they develop linkages with large enterprises in India.
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