Border closure bearing negative impact on Pak-Afghan trade

The prolong closure of trade routes with Afghanistan is bearing highly negative impact not only on Pakistani exports rather it is losing its traditional market to other states of the region, said businesses from countries.

Pakistan export to Afghanistan in the 2012 to highest stage of about US$ 2.5 billion and the demand of all Pakistani products particularly flour, cement, medicines, fruit and vegetable was high and hundreds of containers loaded with these products were crossing over to Afghanistan.

But since then the trade is constantly declining while the ongoing closure of the border for the last 46 days is likely to play further havoc with it. Presently more than 6000 Afghanistan bound containers are stranded at Karachi Port.

Talking to scribe, Ahmad Shah, a prominent Afghan importer though welcomed the decision of Pakistan for opening border for three days a week. However, he said that as Afghanistan is the biggest consumer state of Pakistani products and their demand is also highly.

Therefore, he called for the opening of the border for all seven days of the week to clear the backlog of about 6000 containers stranded at Karachi Port to mitigate the expenses of Afghan importers in head of demurrage and detention charge. He said that Pakistani cement, particularly Cherat and Kohat cement were having high demand.

Not only Afghans rather Pakistani exporters and other stakeholders of the bilateral and transit trade are also attributing the constant decline in trade due to some business unfriendly steps on the side of Pakistan.

According to Afghan importer, Pakistani cement has played big role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The high demand of Pakistani cement in Afghanistan was also boosting its cement industry and they were operating with 24 hours capacity.

But, in case of the closures of borders they have been left with no other option than to purchase it from other countries and particularly from Iran. He said that Iran has even named its cement after Cherat Cement due its popularity in Afghanistan.

Similarly, till recent past Pakistani flour was household items in all Afghan houses and they were familiar only with this Pakistani commodity as they have spent more than three decades of their life in Pakistani as refugees have developed special appetite for Pakistani flour, but now due to lack of availability in market, Afghans have started the use of Kazakhstani flour.

Similarly, he said that high demurrage and detention charges is also discouraging Afghan importers from the transportation of their goods through Karachi port.

He said that the livelihood of the millions of people is associated the transit trade and not only traders, rather there are thousands of customs clearing & border agents, drivers, cleaners and auto-mechanics and restaurants that are benefiting from the transit trade.

Despite, the stoppage of the issuance of Goods Documents (GDs) and stranding of containers, the authorities are still charging both demurrage and detention charges is diverting the attention of Afghan importers to Chabahar and Bandar Abbas ports of Iran that is charging in these heads.

About steps proposed by Pakistan for preventing the outbreak of coronavirus and quarantining of the drivers and cleaners of the trucks transporting goods to Afghanistan, the Afghan importer said that Afghanistan has proposed to Pakistani authorities that Pakistani drivers would have to handover their vehicles to Afghan drivers from zero-point and then after downloading the trucks would be handed over to them within a four hours.

Zia-ul-Haq, a Pakistani businessman and president of Frontier Customs Agents Group have also called for round the clock opening of Torkham and Chaman for trade to clear the backlog of containers stranded at Karachi port.

He has called for the waiving of the demurrage and detention charges of the stranded containers as a good-well gesture for the promotion of Pak-Afghan trade. He said that due to lock of consultations with stakeholders, Pakistan is losing Afghan market.