Cross-LoC trade: FJKCCI President voices concern over reported suspension

President of the Federation of Jammu & Kashmir Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FJKCCI) Zulfiqar Abbasi here on Thursday expressed concern over the reported suspension of the exchange of trade between the both sides of the line of control including AJK and Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir following the hostile and negative attitude of the authorities at other side of the LoC.
"The apprehensions of the Kashmiri business community at both sides of the LoC about the bleak future of the cross-LoC trade have started emerging true because of the undue bureaucratic hurdles being placed at either side of the LoC especially in the occupied state to sabotage the trans-LoC trade through placement of various bottlenecks on one pretext or the other," Abbasi said while talking to a group of senior journalists here.
Trans-LoC trade between AJK and occupied Kashmir had started on October 21 last year as a result of an agreement reached between India and Pakistan. Abbasi revealed that the latest ugly state of affairs of the nefarious move of disbanding the LoC trade appeared on April 29 (Wednesday) when the trucks loaded with the items left AJK for occupied Kashmir according to the agreed schedule through Muzaffarabad-Srinagar route but none of the concerned government officials from occupied Kashmir came to receive these trucks from AJK for the reasons best known to them.
He opined that this was being exercised on the dictation of those elements, which were adamant to undermine the cross-LoC trade. President of the FJKCCI, the solitary apex body of the business community of both sides of the J&K state (AJK and Indian occupied Kashmir), said that sudden imposition of restrictions over the number of trucks, loaded with the traded items, by the authorities in occupied Kashmir was the ample proof of the nefarious attempts to put the cross-LoC trade gradually to a permanent end, he maintained adding that authorities across the LoC have reportedly imposed restriction of plying only up to 25 loaded trucks on the stipulated dates twice a week.