PESHAWAR: Business community in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa demanded to devise a joint mechanism to remove hurdles in the way of Pak-Afghan bilateral trade as well as with Central Asian Republics.
Need of rationalised tariffs/levies, improvement in border management system, simplifying procedures/rules and policies in order to boost up mutual trade between the two neighbouring countries as well as enhance regional trade, the traders representatives stated this during a meeting of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry Standing Committee on Afghanistan and Central Asian Republic (CARs) Trade Promotion, held under chairmanship of director Area Study Centre Peshawar University.
Engineer Manzoor Elahi, the body senior vice chairman and Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, vice chairman, members and representatives of relevant stakeholders were present in the meeting, which aimed to compile recommendations for the government regarding promotion of Pak-Afghan trade and enhancement of exports to regional countries.
Participants of the meeting emphasized that the business community on both sides of the border should be consented before finalization and signing of a new Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA).
The meeting identified the bottleneck and hiccups, hampering the mutual trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and proposed a number of ideas/recommendations to address them by adopting joint policy.
Manzoor Elahi while speaking on the occasion said that the SCCI is making vigorous efforts to enhance bilateral trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan and onward trade with regional countries.
In this regard, he said the chamber had already proposed various recommendations. He added the present government has taken steps in the light of SCCI’s proposals to improve Pak-Afghan mutual trade as well as exports to CARs.
Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, who is also vice president Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber emphasized that Pak-Afghan traders should be consulted before finalizing and signing new ATTA.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
Comments
Comments are closed.