Bahrain will use its GCC presidency to push the Pakistan trade deal, and sets up a working group

Bahrain's foreign minister, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, said on Thursday that Manama will use its presidency of the Gulf Cooperation Council to speed the signing or approval of a free trade agreement with Pakistan. The pledge came at the third session of the Pakistan-Bahrain Joint Ministerial Commission in Islamabad, co-chaired with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. The two sides signed agreed minutes covering more than 15 areas, set up a joint working group on trade and investment, and adopted a target to double bilateral trade within three years.

Al Zayani listed the near-term machinery at a joint press conference. A working group on energy, covering oil, gas and minerals, is to meet next month. The trade and investment group is new. Cooperation was also written down on food security, information technology, law enforcement, media, labour mobility, health, education, culture and sport. Dar called the session comprehensive and said the talks had covered agriculture, energy, sports, tourism and business-to-business links. He also raised Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab with Al Zayani, the two straits that have framed Gulf shipping during the Iran war. Al Zayani called on President Asif Ali Zardari during the visit.

The trade target is a ratio without a published base in the ministers' remarks. Doubling in three years is a political number until the commerce ministries attach a starting value. What is fixed is the institution: a joint group that did not exist before Thursday, and a GCC presidency that Bahrain says it will spend on the wider Pakistan deal. The free trade agreement is a Gulf text, not a Bahrain-only text. One member can press the file. It cannot sign for Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. That is the limit on Al Zayani's sentence, and it is also why the presidency matters. The chair sets the agenda.

Labour mobility and food security are the items with a direct Pakistani interest inside a 15-heading list. Remittances and jobs in the Gulf are a larger flow for Pakistan than most tariff lines. A working group that names labour next to oil and gas is aimed at that flow, not only at customs schedules. Energy talks next month, on oil, gas and minerals, sit against a year in which Gulf supply has been the price setter for importers. Pakistan buys both fuel and, in thinner years, food. Thursday's minutes put both on a calendar.

The straits are the other half of the visit. Dawn reported that Al Zayani discussed Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab with Dar. Those are shipping facts, not trade-agreement clauses. A free trade text does not move a barrel through Hormuz. A conversation between the GCC chair and Pakistan's foreign minister, in the same week that attacks shut civilian flights at Riyadh and Abha, is about whether the political channel stays open while the waterway does not. The ministers did not publish a new security commitment. They published a trade group and a three-year doubling target.

The next dated step is the energy working group next month. The trade group has no public first meeting date. The GCC file moves if Bahrain puts it on a council agenda. Until then the Islamabad minutes are 15 headings, a double-trade aim, and a presidency pledge.