KARACHI, Oct 10: The monthly volume of goods cleared by the Customs under Afghan Transit Trade Agreement is normal despite the war and closure of international borders after September 11 assault on the United States.

However, the customs officials fail to explain where the consignments go.

“There is no official word on the status of Afghan Transit Trade since the US attack whether it was suspended and the goods already imported are either lying at the Karachi port or are piling up at Peshawar dry port,” local traders said.

But customs say they clear the consignments according to bills of entry and have no concern where they go.

Official figures show that during first eight days of this month (Oct 1 to 9), 96 bill of entries, having value of Rs49 million, were filed with Karachi Customs.

Similarly, imports under ATT during last month (Sept) also maintained normal flow and as many as 396 Bill of Entries were filed having total value of imports of Rs1.199 billion.

Presently only 15 items are being regularly imported under ATT (Afghan Transit Trade Agreement) including green tea, bicycle and its parts, battery cell, diesel engine, medicine, pad lock and parts, sundry goods (cosmetics, artificial jewellry, key chains, etc.), black pepper, cardamom, lubricating oil, break fluid, sugar, garments, sewing machine and parts, electrical goods (electric iron, electric kettle) and steel sheets.

However, importers say that many items prone to smuggling are also being imported under the garb of ATT, which does not only result in millions of rupees loss in revenue, but also damages local industry.

Even during the first eight months (Jan to Aug) of this year average monthly filing of bill of entries under ATT ranged between 326 to 589 having total value of Rs11 billion.

However, chairman Pakistan Commodity Traders Association, Raees Ashraf Tarmohammad told Dawn that all these goods coming under ATT had been in the pipeline.

“I am sure that now the flow of goods under ATT will start tapering off as the Pak-Afghan border is closed and the possibility of goods coming back into Pakistan was no more there,” he asserted.

Besides ATT, the other sources of smuggling, he said, include Indo-Pak border, Sust border near China and Pak-Iran border. He said similar arrangements of transit trade are there between Iran and Afghanistan through Bandar Abbas.

Raees said that approximately goods worth between four to five billion dollars are annually smuggled into the country, of which dollar one billion are coming under ATT.

Once the smuggling is checked, he said, the loss in revenue to the tune of Rs100 to Rs150 billion will be saved in the form of withholding tax, sales tax and customs duty. He said presently smuggled goods are cheaper by 20 to 25 per cent over imported goods.

He said that defective ITP (Import Trade Price) is also indirectly encouraging ‘smuggling’ as importers resort to heavy under invoicing of costly goods and clear them on payment of customs duty.