29 October 2004	Friday	14 Ramazan 1425

PESHAWAR, Oct 28: The volume of goods being transported from Peshawar to Afghanistan under the Afghan Transit Trade has grown manifold as a result of Islamabad's decision to liberalize its trade policy towards the war-torn country.

"The ATT grew substantially during the last couple of financial years because of Islamabad's liberal policies," said a Peshawar-based officer of the Central Board of Revenue.

The total value of goods exported from Peshawar to Afghanistan via Torkham border crossing during the financial year 2003-04 stood at Rs7.8 billion, which reflected a considerable increase in comparison with the financial years 2001-02 and 2002-03.

Situation during the current financial year is also not different from the last fiscal year when the size of ATT grew substantially. Though the goods transported to Afghanistan under the ATT during the first five months of the current financial year appear to be marginally less than the last year, the decrease was the result of development cess levied by the Sindh government, sources say.

Scores of containers, said a customs clearance agent, were not cleared by the traders because of the provincial levy, which was recently withdrawn on the instructions of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The sources said the ATT volume would grow substantially during the months to come when businessmen would start getting cleared their goods lying at the Karachi Port. "This would lead to grow the ATT taking its quantum to a new height," said an official.

The goods transported under ATT during the financial year 2003-04 recorded an increase by 39 per cent over the financial year 2001-02 and 34 per cent more when compared with the goods transported from Peshawar under the ATT to Afghanistan in the financial year 2002-03. Goods worth Rs4.7 billion were exported to Afghanistan in 2001-02. The value of goods in the financial year 2002-03 stood at Rs5.2 billion.

The increase in the quantum of ATT has been attributed to the federal government's decision to remove certain items from the negative list. The government removed ball bearing, vegetable ghee, black tea, air conditioners and yarn from the negative list.

Ball bearings worth Rs46 million were allowed to be transported to Afghanistan under the ATT, whereas the value of black tea and vegetable ghee stood at Rs865 million and Rs223 million, respectively.

The government had earlier put black tea and vegetable oil on the negative list because of heavy misuse of the ATT facility. The two items were put on the list after the government found that goods transported under the ATT to Afghanistan were smuggled back to the Pakistani market.

Other major items which are being imported by Afghanistan under the ATT include medicines, electric appliances, crockery, blankets, generators, green tea, motor oil, bicycles and their parts, hardware, diesel engines and their parts.