India on Wednesday ruled out withdrawing the Most Favoured Nation status given to Pakistan despite Islamabad's refusal to grant the same to New Delhi.
"There is no proposal as of now to withdraw MFN status given to Paksitan," Minister of State for Commerce and Industry E V K S Elangovan said in Rajya Sabha.
"Pakistan has so far not granted MFN status to India despite its obligations including under WTO and has cited extraneous political and economic reasons for this," he said in a written reply to a query and added that India has taken up the issue with Pakistan repeatedly.
India's total trade (exports and imports) with G-8 countries touched $48 billion in 2004-05 from $41 billion in 2002-03 and the percentage share of G-8 countries in the total trade ranged between 25-31 per cent during these period, he said in reply to another question.
According to the latest provisional data for April-October period of 2005-06, India's exports were valued at $51.5 billion and imports at $75 billion.
The applications for patent filed in India in 2004-05 are 17,466 while the same for China in 2004 was 130,000, he said.
India's share on global food trade is 0.76 per cent, according to Food and Agricultural Organisation Trade Year Book 2003, Elangovan said.
