PESHAWAR: The Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry has urged Islamabad and Kabul to review the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA), otherwise it will lose its utility.

The chamber’s senior vice president Ziaul Haq Sarhadi said both the governments were least bothered to take practical steps for strengthening the bilateral trade and improving ATTA, and in case serious attention was not paid the situation would go from bad to worse in near future, according to a statement issued here on Friday.

Mr Sarhadi, who is also the vice-chairman of All Pakistan Customs Agents Association, maintained that India and Iran would exploit the situation, and as a result, the business community of Pakistan and Afghanistan would suffer.

He stressed the need that a comprehensive policy should be devised for taking advantage from the big markets of Afghanistan and other central Asian states.

The ATTA has already been sabotaged as 70 per cent of the business has been shifted to Chabahar and Bandar Abbas ports of Iran during the past six years, and as a result, the Pak-Afghan bilateral trade has been reduced from $2.5 billion to $1.5 billion, Mr Sarhadi pointed out, calling for concrete steps to realise the dream of taking the trade volume between Pakistan and Afghanistan to $5 billion.

He said both the countries should recognise each other’s importance and extend cooperation to remove the hurdles in the trade activities.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2017