NEW DELHI, March 18 (Xinhuanet) -- The improvement in bilateral ties between India and Pakistan has raised hopes that commercial links between Indian-administered Kashmir and central Asian countries would be revived.

    Kashmiris were enriched by free flow of trade with central Asiain the past. "We hope that the changing situation in the subcontinent would lead to the outer posts" in Kashmir open to revive the mutual commercial links once again, Prof. A. M. Mattoo,an expert in Central Asian Studies, said on Thursday at a seminar in Srinagar.

    The Press Trust of India quoted Mattoo as saying that the relations between the two regions were so strong that even today the revenue terminology used in Kashmir was derived from central Asia.

    Several speakers at the seminar expressed hope that the changing scenario in Kashmir would give the traders an opportunityto once again find market for their products in central Asian countries. Enditem