PESHAWAR: Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry Director Ziaul Haq Sarhadi on Sunday urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to review the conditions of Pak-Afghan transit trade agreement of 2010 to help enhance the trade volume and end India’s monopoly in the region.

Mr Sarhadi, who is also chairman of the standing committee for railways and dry port of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said trade volume between Pakistan and Afghanistan was $2.4 billion which had been reduced to $1.2 billion during the past three years, according to a statement issued here on Sunday.

He recalled that both the countries in a meeting in 2014 had committed to increasing the trade volume to $5 billion till 2019 but the dream was not materialised. For enhancing trade activities, he asked for early opening of the Azakhel dry port in Nowshera which will help restore activities of 370 customs clearing agents and enable at least 10,000 people to get employment.

Mr Sarhadi said if the Azakhel dry port was opened for trade activities the exporters and importers would take benefits from the services of Pakistan Railways, and as a result the country’s economy would get boost.

He said due to lack of facilities at the dry port at Peshawar, shortage of locomotives and increase in transport charges, the traders associated the Afghan Transit Trade had shifted 70 per cent of their businesses to the Chabahar and Bandar Abbas ports of Iran.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2018