ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: The Afghan government has asked Islamabad to withdraw the infrastructure cess by September 28 levied on Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) goods by the Sindh government otherwise Kabul will slap a flat rate of Rs100,000 per truck on Pakistani exportable products.

Well-placed sources told Dawn that the decision was conveyed to Afghan importers during a meeting with Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani in Jalalabad on Saturday.

The minister informed the importers that he would take up the issue with Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz by Monday, added the sources.

The Afghan importers have stopped the clearance of transit goods from September 1, 2004 what they said would continue till a final decision was made regarding this matter between the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The number of containers piling up at the port had reached around 3,000, the sources said.

When contacted, foreign office spokesman Masood Khan told Dawn: "We realize the urgency of the matter. We are in touch with the Afghan government, the ministries concerned and the provincial government in order to resolve this issue amicably and quickly."

According to the sources, the Afghan government had reportedly warned that in case their demands were not met they would prefer to import goods through Iran, which was actively engaged in the process of providing more facilities to the Afghan importers.

The Iranian government has recently announced maximum facilities for the Afghan importers with open transit facility to import any kind of goods under the Afghan Transit Trade through the Bandar Abbas Port.

The statistics showed that the volume of ATT goods rose by 161 per cent in June 2004 and 48.7 per cent in the July-June period of the fiscal year 2003-04 over the corresponding period of last year.

It is feared that in case the cess was not withdrawn imports under the Afghan Transit Trade will decline during the year 2004-05, which will subsequently affect the stakeholders involved in the business.