Pakistan loses 50pc market share in Kabul

Published March 4, 2018
Trucks and other vehicles travel through the mountains near Torkham border. Pakistan’s market share in Afghanistan is being receded to India and China as its exports fell to $1.24bn in 2016-17 from $1.437bn 2015-16.
Trucks and other vehicles travel through the mountains near Torkham border. Pakistan’s market share in Afghanistan is being receded to India and China as its exports fell to $1.24bn in 2016-17 from $1.437bn 2015-16.

KARACHI: India has succeeded to penetrate in Kabul slashing the market share of Pakistan by more than 50 per cent in the last two years, Chairman Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry Zubair Motiwala told Dawn on Friday.

Motiwala who recently visited Kabul said the penetration of India and China has limited Pakistan’s option to retain its market share while India subsidises heavily on its exports. He said Pakistan’s trade with Afghanistan fell to $1.2 billion from $2.7bn within in the last two years and the country has been losing even the traditional markets of flour, men and women’s clothes and red meat.

India has been providing goods at subsidised rates to capture the market and are providing air tickets with a 75pc rebate, said Motiwala, adding that Afghans find it easy to travel to India with cheap tickets and free multiple visas without police checks.

Kabul has been the natural market for Pakistani exports but that is changing as cheaper products from China and India flood the country. According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, exports to Afghanistan dropped to $1.271bn in FY17 from $1.437bn in FY16. Exports in the first quarter of 2017-18 stood at $319 million.

Each year thousands of Afghans used to visit Peshawar for medical treatment but now they prefer India due to cheaper treatments and other attractions like concessional treatments. “Medical tourism of Peshawar, which was mainly due to Afghans, is now at zero level; hospitals in Hayatabad are empty,” he continued.

He said Peshawar is the main victim of the declining trade with Afghanistan where people have lost their businesses on a large scale. Out of 200 flour mills, about 100 have been closed down due to a drastic fall in the export of flour to Afghanistan, he added.

He also referred to the decreasing containers’ traffic from Pakistan to Afghanistan. He said 70,000 goods containers were used to pass through between the two countries which has now dropped to just 7,000, reflecting the change of routes for imported goods to Afghans.

Pakistan was the biggest supplier of shalwar qameez suits to Kabul but that too has changed since both India and China are now supplying the readymade suits which are traditionally Pakistani products.

State Bank’s data showed that the imports from Afghanistan increased to $68m in FY17, compared to $40m in FY16.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2018

Opinion

The perfect man
19 Aug 2021

The perfect man

Imam Husain exemplified perfection in every sense of the word.
Return of the Taliban
Updated 18 Aug 2021

Return of the Taliban

The new dispensation in Afghanistan will be required to alleviate the concerns over human rights issues.
Aid and debt
Updated 18 Aug 2021

Aid and debt

The fact that aid is for the giver and not the taker is proven in the methods that have been used for its disbursal.

Editorial

19 Aug 2021

Militancy concerns

HAVING made their way to Kabul like a hot knife through butter, the Afghan Taliban are saying all the right things ...
Horrific assault
Updated 19 Aug 2021

Horrific assault

There is a tremendous amount of work to be done to correct the public narrative around women’s rights.
19 Aug 2021

Decreasing FDI flows

THE consistent decline in FDI flows into Pakistan in recent years should worry our economic managers. The net flows...
Price of US follies
Updated 18 Aug 2021

Price of US follies

The birth of terror organisations like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda are by-products of America’s ideologically fuelled policies.
18 Aug 2021

Grotesque stunt

EVEN by the standards of the megalomaniacal Narendra Modi, it was an astonishingly ill-timed publicity stunt. A few...
18 Aug 2021

Facilitating SMEs

THE new three-year State Bank refinance scheme — SME Asaan Finance — for providing collateral-free bank loans to...