PESHAWAR: The All Pakistan Customs Agents Association (APCAA) has held the bureaucracy of Pakistan and Afghanistan responsible for hurdles to the smooth sailing of the new Pak-Afghan Transit Trade Agreement.

In a statement issued here on Tuesday, APCAA vice chairman Ziaul Haq Sarhadi said though both the countries wanted to increase trade volume up to US dollar five billion annually, it had been reduced to $2.5 billion. The reduction in trade volume, he said was due to transfer of the goods transportation to Chabahar and Bandar Abbas in Iran.

He feared that if both the countries failed to take the issue seriously the ATTA would collapse, saying the decline in Pak-Afghan transit trade would benefit Iran and India. “We had apprised the Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Hazrat Umer Zakhelwal of the situation during his recent visit to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and he assured to extend all cooperation to remove hurdles in the bilateral trade,” Mr Sarhadi said.

The APCAA vice chairman stressed the need for devising a comprehensive strategy to further improve the bilateral trade agreement in order to take advantage of the fast developing trade markets of central Asian countries. He said due to increasing problems in the trade agreement the ultimate sufferer would be Afghanistan.

Mr Sarhadi, who is also president of the Frontier Customs Agents Group Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said if Pakistan and Afghanistan took serious steps to improve bilateral trade they could benefit from the new agreements to be signed among Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan in near future.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2016