Saturday, 22 September , 2012 ISLAMABAD APP T HREE Trade agreements were signed between the Secretary Commerce Pak- istan Munir Qureshi and Secretary Commerce India S.R.Rao. The agreements were signed at the end of 7th Round of Pakistan-Indian Commerce Secretary level Talks on “Economic & Commercial Co-operation September 20-21, here on Friday. The agreements signed included Re- dressal of trade Grievances and Agree- ment between Government of Islamic Republic of Pakistan and government of Republic of India on co-operation and mutual assistance in custom matters. Besides, Bilateral Cooperation agreement between Pakistan standard of quality control authority, Ministry of Science & Technology and the Bureau Indian Standards Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution was also singed. Spain needs no sovereign bailout: German minister German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Friday that Spain did not need a sovereign bailout on top of the package already agreed for its banks because it was on the right path to regain the confidence of markets. BERLIN: “Spain needs no program because it is doing the right thing and will be successful,” he told foreign cor- respondents in Berlin. “What Spain needs is the confidence of financial markets and that is where Spain has real problems.” Schaeuble dismissed as “dangerous” the idea of giving Spain the full 100 billion euros earmarked for the recapitalization of its banks if it needs less than that amount. Regard- ing Greece, the minister said nobody in the euro zone wanted it to leave the currency bloc but Athens had to prove to the “troika” of international inspec- tors that it was sticking to the terms of its second international rescue pack- age. Stressing that it had been “very difficult” to convince European leaders to give Greece another bailout, Schaeu- ble said: “Nobody wants Greece to leave the euro, but the question is whether it has met the conditions of its second aid program.” AGENCIES 3 Indo-Pak trade agreements inked Troika report on Greece may come after US vote NEW YORK AGENCIES The report by the ‘troika’ of Greece’s foreign lenders — the European Commission, Euro- pean Central Bank and International Mon- etary Fund — was expected during October, possibly before a meeting of euro zone fi- nance ministers on October 8. The study provides the basis for deci- sions on whether to disburse the next tranche of aid to Athens, which may other- wise run out of money to pay wages and pensions, default on its debt and perhaps be forced to leave the euro area. Differences inside the troika about the precise extent of Greece’s debt problems, combined with political pressure to hold off for another few weeks, look likely to mean a delay until mid-November. In the mean- time, Greece will be kept afloat by issuing short-term treasury bills and its banks will get access to emergency funds from the Greek central bank. “The Obama adminis- tration doesn’t want anything on a macro- economic scale that is going to rock the global economy before November 6,” a sen- ior EU official told Reuters, adding that pre- vious troika reports had also slipped. The European Commission’s represen- tative on the troika, Matthias Mors, denied that the report could be delayed, and an of- ficial at Greece’s finance ministry said he had been assured that there would be no slippage. A U.S. official said the United States had made clear to European officials that it wanted to avoid any “downside” eco- nomic surprises because of the fragile U.S. recovery, but denied that it had anything to do with the U.S. election. Several sources in Germany described those conversations with their U.S. coun- terparts and said the message had been that the Americans didn’t want sur- prises before the election. Most polls show President Barack Obama lead- ing his Republican rival Mitt Rom- ney, but voters remain sensitive to any event that could damage U.S. economic growth and hurt jobs. “It’s likely the troika re- port will be pushed back be- yond the U.S. election date,” said a Berlin official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Asked if that was a special re- quest from Washing- ton, he replied: “They don’t want any surprises.” The European Commission’s spokesman on finance said on Friday the troika would take a week-long break from its work in Athens, the second time it has inter- rupted its mission since it began in late July, adding to expectations of a delay. “The inspectors are expected to return to Athens in about a week,” spokesman Simon O’Connor told reporters. “As for a conclusion of the mission, I don’t have any dates to share with you,” he said, adding that it should be some time dur- ing October. “We can’t say exactly when.” “THEY DON’T WANT ROMNEY” Even if the mission does conclude its work on the ground in October, it will still take some time to write up its findings, the focus of which will be whether Greece will ever be able to get its debt down to a sustainable level. That analysis will ei- ther show that Athens can reduce its debts below 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, as required by the IMF, or that the tar- get will be missed. If Greece is off-target by a wide margin, as many economists pre- dict, financial markets will react negatively, concerned that another round of debt restructur- ing will be required to get government finances back on a stable footing. A negative troika report could also revive pressure to force Greece out of the single currency area with potentially devastating knock-on conse- quences for other European countries and the global economy. European leaders have the same inter- ests as the U.S. president in not destabilizing markets — their own economies have also been badly affected by the fallout from Greece, where the sovereign debt crisis began in January 2010. But one source said EU leaders’ motives went beyond macroeconomic stability. They also had political reasons to avoid rocking the boat before the U.S. election. “As far as European leaders are con- cerned, they don’t want Romney, so they’re probably willing to do anything to help Obama’s chances,” said the source, an EU official involved in finding solutions to the debt crisis. The problem for Obama is that if Eu- rope’s leaders are seen, implicitly or other- wise, to be working to bolster his reelection chances, it could provide ammunition for the Romney campaign. European leaders have repeatedly been accused of acting too slowly and in a con- fused way to resolve the crisis, with a knock- on negative impact on the United States. If they are now seen to be allying with Obama, it could dent his popularity. An EU-IMF report into whether Greece’s debt is manageable looks set to be delayed until after November 6 because policymakers want to avoid any shock to the global economy before the US election, EU officials and diplomats said Want some locomotives? ISLAMABAD: India has offered to sell locomotives to Pakistan at a competitive price. The offer was made during the seventh round of commerce secretary-level talks between the two countries. According to sources Pakistan agreed to consider over buying locomotives made in India and start direct flights between Islamabad and Delhi. The sources said Indians were informed that although bids for the purchase of 150 locomotives against soft loans had already been invited, Pakistan would place advertisements to buy 50 more locomotives in the next few weeks and they were encouraged to participate in the bidding. The Indian delegation quoted a price of 70 million In- dian rupees per locomotive. The two-day Pakistan and India talks on promotion of trade relations ended in Islamabad on Friday. Pakistani side was led by Secretary Commerce Munir Qureshi while his Indian counterpart S. R. Rao led the Indian side. Both countries signed on three agreements. These agreements pertain to removing mutual trade griev- ances‚ cooperation in mutual custom affairs and agree- ment between Pakistan Standards Control Authority and Bureau of Indian Standards. NNI ‘Negative list to be phased out by Dec 31’ ISLAMABAD: The deadline for phasing out of negative list is Dec 31 and progress is being made in this record. Talking to media, Federal Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Faheem said this. Earlier, he has presided over the ceremony of signing of Trade Agreements between Secretary Commerce of India and Secretary Commerce Pakistan here on Friday. Faheem informed that this is the 3rd meeting between the two sec- retaries. He appreciated the pace of the talks aimed remov- ing hurdles and bottlenecks in the trade related talks. The MoU’s signing are a testimony to the fact. He empha- sized the fact that the wishes of public and business com- munity will be taken into consideration. He also asked the local industries and businesses to bring down consumer prices to facilitate people. Mr. Amin Faheem also requested Pakistan people to protest peacefully against the blasphemous movie and not harm public and government property in the process. Earlier on, Federal Minister for commerce Mr. Amin Fa- heem held a dinner in honour of the Indian delegation at local hotel here which was also attended by Indian High commissioner Bhaglay. APP ISLAMABAD ONLINE The Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Friday rejected government’s plan to im- port 15 thousand tonnes of Liquefied Petro- leum Gas (LPG) monthly during winter. The import of 75 thousand tonnes of LPG which will continue for from Novem- ber to March to reduce shortage of natural gas is aimed to personal welfare while masses will have to pay the bill, it said. The top management of Sui Southern Gas Company Limited and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited has been directed to buy 500 tonnes of LPG each from Saudi Aramco to be added in gas system after mixing air in it. Similarly, the SSGC and SNGPL, which will buy 250 tonnes of LPG each, has been directed to make a deal through a broker, highly placed sources in the Ministry of Pe- troleum and Natural Resources told Abdul- lah Tariq, SVP, PEW. The present Aramco CP (Contract Price) for LPG is $ 946 per tonne while bringing it to Pakistan will cost another $ 150 per tonne excluding taxes and other ex- penditures. The move will cost masses Rs 50 million per day for five months or 7 bil- lion and 80 crores in total. Sources further said that the broker with whom deal is almost final will have to pay a commercial bribe of 25000 dollar (Rs 23 lakh) per day which will be deposited in an offshore account of a politician. If the supply continued for five months, the total kickbacks paid by the Saudi broker will be around Rs 3.5 billion. Abdullah Tariq said that government and private companies in are extracting 1100 tonnes of LPG from all the oil and gas wells in Pakistan which is shrinking natural gas. On the other hand government plans import of LPG which will jack up cost of gas for masses. Theft of gas has reached to 12 per cent of total production or around 504 tonnes. This is the same amount of gas gov- ernment wants to import but it would not stop leakage. It may be mentioned that price of local gas is $6 per British Thermal Unit (BTU) while cost of imported LPG stands at $ 24 per BTU. Presently country’s total production of gas stands at 4200 mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) while demand in winter touches mark of 5900 mmcfd cubic feet. Rejected! PEW rejects LPG import plan 18-Business Pages- 22th September_Layout 1 9/22/2012 6:02 AM Page 1