KARACHI – Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Monday said the potential of bilateral trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan is ten billion dollars but it has been reduced to a few million dollars.
The trade is to shrink further due to problems faced by exporters which will also hit trade with central Asian countries, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that now Afghanistan has started importing cement, steel bars, ghee, cooking oil, rice, gur, medicines, and other items from Iran, India, and Central Asian states which has greatly reduced the share of Pakistani products in the Afghan market.
Talking to the representatives of Khyber and Waziristan Chamber of Commerce, the veteran business leader said that red tape, the indifference of authorities, and corruption at border points has damaged Pakistani exports.
It takes weeks to clear export consignments and now the clearance of trucks and containers has been stopped.
At the occasion, office bearers of different chamber of commerce of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that the central bank has recently amended foreign exchange rules after which banks have withdrawn facility of “cash over the counter” and stopped issuing E forum to the exporters resulting is suspension of trade with Afghanistan through land route.
The development has been damaging small exporters of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while the remaining trade is also shifting to other countries.
The business leader said that the banking system in Afghanistan is weak, law and order situation is not satisfactory therefore it was the only country for which trade-related transactions were allowed through non-banking channels but now the facility has been withdrawn which is hitting trade.
He said that thousands of containers are stuck at border awaiting clearance which has also stopped exports to central Asia.
Meanwhile, Mian Zahid Hussian called Abdul Razak Dawood, Adviser for Commerce and Investment to Prime Minister Imran Khan, Deputy Government SBP Seema Kamil, Director Exchange Policy SBP Arshad Mehmood Bhatti; apprised them of the hardships being faced by the exporters and asked to revisit the decision as it will bankrupt exporters and reduce trade to zero.
