March 13, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 9, 1424

ISLAMABAD, March 12: Pakistan has decided to open a couple of new points on the Afghan border and amend the transportation mode that would allow the private sector trailers to transport goods to Kabul to counter an increasing India-Iran combined influence in the emerging Afghan market.

A senior cabinet member told Dawn that a set of drastic changes in the Afghan Transit Trade would be announced when President Hamid Karzai visits Islamabad on March 22.

He said the ministries of commerce and industries had jointly finalized these measures that would be formally approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet soon after Ashura so that the Afghan president started his visit on a positive note.

The minister, who asked not to be named, said the mode of transportation under the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA) would be amended and signed during the Afghan leader’s visit.

The amended mode would allow the private sector trailers and trucks to carry goods meant for Afghanistan from Karachi port to Afghan cities. The National Logistics Cell (NLC) alone could transport these goods under the original mode.

Pakistan, he said, had also decided to reduce the cost of transportation through certain administrative measures, but did not elaborate.

The minister also confirmed the negative list barring certain goods to be transported under the ATTA would be further reduced by 16 items. This means that the negative list would now contain only 11 items from the existing number of 27 and would include items like explosives and certain prohibitive chemicals.

The minister said the idea was to revise the ATTA in a big way to facilitate trade through Pakistan’s territory through reduced transportation cost because this was an area where India and Iran together or even Iran could not compete with Pakistan.

Currently, the Pakistan-Afghan trade is taking place through Chamman and Torkham, and new posts like Ghulam Ali near Miran and Shah and certain other points where two big towns in Pakistan and across the border fall nearer to each other. The government believed this would reduce cost of transportation cost because of proximity of towns on two sides of the border.

All the relevant ministries have consented to the package on Afghan trade through circulation of the summary for the ECC, the sources said.

The minister said recent agreement between Iran and India to establish road and railway links from India to Afghanistan via Iran has made Pakistan to rethink its trade arrangements with Kabul because it could not afford to lose the Afghan market, which had a lot of potential to grow when the war-torn returns to complete normalcy after two decades of destruction.

Afghanistan has historically been relying on imports through Pakistan under the Afghanistan Transit Trade Agreement. Pakistan had, however, restricted around 27 items to pass through its territory, which it believed were of no use in Afghanistan and were smuggled back into Pakistan.

Afghanistan has been asking Pakistan since the fall of Taliban government about a year back on almost every forum that the negative list should be done away with.

The Afghans contend that many items that were of no use in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime have now become daily use items and should not be restricted by Pakistan.

Pakistan had promised to the Hamid Karzai administration last year to review the Afghanistan Transit Trade arrangements in a way that it was beneficial to Kabul but did not harm the Pakistani industry.