Business delegations from Pakistan will attend the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in January for the first time since 2013, The Indian Express reported on Friday. At least seven delegations from different regions of the country are expected to participate in the summit, scheduled to take place from January 18 to January 20 in Gandhinagar.

Vibrant Gujarat is a biennial investors’ summit aimed to being global businesses and explore business opportunities in Gujarat.

Managing Director of Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation, D Thara, said Pakistan was one of the countries from where representatives of trade chambers have been invited. “All I want to say on this issue is that most of the chambers are coming for the first time,” Thara said.

Thara told The Times of India that MSME clusters from Pakistan and Bangladesh were invited, but “details are still being worked out”.

Official documents reviewed by The Indian Express showed that Pakistan will be represented by two delegations from Faisalabad, and one each from Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi, Punjab province and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In 2013, a delegation of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry had come for the Vibrant Gujarat summit. However, as bilateral ties soured after two Indian soldiers were killed along the international border in Jammu and Kashmir’s Mendhar sector on January 8 that year, the business delegation did not participate in the main event.

A total of 52 delegations representing commerce and trade bodies from 45 countries have confirmed their participation for the Global Conclave of International Chambers, one of the events at the summit.

The conclave is organised by the Gujarat government in association with the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry. GCCI President Jaimin Vasa said they were not concerned about where the delegations were coming from. “We are looking for business associations,” Vasa said. “The basic objective of this event is to discuss business policies and best practices.”