Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday set the ball rolling for the nationwide introduction of the value-added tax before the end of the current fiscal.

Asim Dasgupta, finance minister of West Bengal and chairman of the empowered committee of state finance ministers, on Wednesday met Chidambaram to reinitiate the dialogue with the Centre on the VAT.

"We discussed the VAT, service taxation and state finance-related issues," he told reporters after the meeting.

According to Dasgupta, the empowered committee will meet within a fortnight to carry forward the dialogue process.

Chidambaram would be invited to the meeting, he said, adding that the finance minister had agreed to be part of the discussions to build a national consensus on the introduction of the VAT.