ISLAMABAD, Oct 15: President Pervez Musharraf is going to chair a meeting on Afghanistan here on Wednesday. The meeting would be attended among others by ministers for finance, commerce and agriculture, a senior official told Dawn on Tuesday.

Elaborating on the agenda of the meeting, the official said it would discuss at length the Islamabad pledge of assistance to Kabul, incentives for exporters and importers to take active part in the reconstruction activities. It would also review the role of the businessmen so far if any in the reconstruction activities of that country.

The meeting would also discuss the possible revision of the Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) agreement with Afghanistan to allow import of more items that have been put in the negative list.

It would also discuss the possible incentives to be given to exporters to enhance bilateral trade with Afghanistan.

Official figures available with Dawn showed that Pakistan has achieved a trade surplus of $146.423 million with Afghanistan during the financial year 2001-02 against the trade surplus of $110.876 million in the year 2000-01, showing an increase of 32 per cent.

Further break up of the statistics showed that Pakistan exports stood at $169.281 million in 2001-02 against $140.404 million over the corresponding year, showing an increase of 20.56 per cent.

And Kabul exports to Islamabad stood at $ 22.858 million in 2001-02 against $29.528 million over the corresponding year, showing a decrease of 22.58 per cent.