Suddenly everyone wants to do business with new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said here on Monday he had an edge because both the leaders had a reputation of embracing business-friendly policies.
“I am here to turn a new page in India-Pakistan relations,” Mr Sharif told the Hindustan Times ahead of his globally watched handshake with Mr Modi, the first foreign leader to do so after the Indian leader was sworn-in in a magnificent ceremony at the British-built Presidential Palace.
The two will hold a bilateral meeting on Tuesday.
“We (India and Pakistan) have a historic moment to open a new chapter. The new government under Mr Modi has a strong mandate and I look forward to picking up the relationship from where I and (A.B.) Vajpayee left it in 1999,” Mr Sharif said.
On his first official trip to India as prime Mr Sharif looked set to drive an agenda of “trade and economics” at his bilateral meeting with Modi. “I am regarded as a friend of businessmen and we are regarded as a business-friendly government. Modi too is perceived as a business-friendly person. He has a model of development,” the Pakistan premier said. “We can easily work with each other.”
